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The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/whats-the-plan-anyway).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** Episode 340.

**Craig:** Sexy Craig.

**John:** Specificity.

**Craig:** Umbrage.

**John:** Segue Man.

**Craig:** Don’t you die on me.

**John:** That’s why they call it a One Cool Thing.

Today on the podcast it’s another round of the Three Page Challenge where we look at the pages that listeners have sent in and tell them what’s working and what’s not working. We also have some follow up. We have a deep dive into the plan behind Return of the Jedi.

**Craig:** If one can call it that.

**John:** Yeah. But I think we’ll actually be able to talk about plans in general, especially opening plans of movies. Because I think it’s sort of a special case.

So that is our episode for today. But first we have some follow up. Wyatt from Florida wrote in, “On Episode 80 of Scriptnotes, Craig Mazin said that it takes four hours to drive from Miami to Atlanta which is a grossly inaccurate statement. To give some context, he was talking about how in Stolen Identity it was mostly filmed in Georgia, making for a less breathtaking road trip than he desired. But, still, I find this to be upsetting as a resident of Florida. Google says this trip takes about 10 hours with a car, which will probably be more like 14 hours after you’ve stopped several times to keep your brain from exploding.

“While I agree that the trip from Miami to Atlanta is not an interesting drive, quite the opposite, it does take a very long time. I think it’s understandable that I would take a certain amount of umbrage with this claim.”

Craig Mazin, how do you answer Wyatt from Florida?

**Craig:** Well, I think I was using a little bit of poetic license there, Wyatt. If you’re going to do a road trip movie, probably you should limit your units to days. How many days will this road trip be? Will it be one of those weeklong road trips? Is it a three-day road trip? A one-day road trip is not a road trip. That’s just a long drive for the day. So, yes, the trip does take about 10 hours in the car. That’s true. You are absolutely correct that visually speaking the trip from Miami to Atlanta is a festival of flat unchanging landscape.

But the sentence here that I’m going to seize on, Wyatt, is, “But, still, I found this to be upsetting as a resident of Florida.” I think you have other things to be upset about right now, Wyatt, as a resident of Florida. I can think of like 20-hundred things that as a resident of Florida you should probably be worried about. But that said, you’re right. And, yes, tip of the cap.

**John:** Yes. We want to be an accurate podcast. I mean, we have a whole staff of fact checkers behind the scenes, but even they will let some things slide through. So that’s why we rely on our listeners to keep us honest and keep us – we don’t want any fake news in this podcast. We want this to be a completely accurate podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. So, Wyatt, thank you.

**Craig:** I kind of imagine Wyatt was listening to Episode 80. He was like loving the podcast, right? He’s just totally gorged on one through 79. And here he is on 80, he’s just humming along. And then he hears me say this and he turns white. Like white as a ghost. Then he rips his headphones off, finds a baseball bat, and just destroys his computer in a rage and then finally calms down, breathes, breathes, breathes. Gets out his phone and is like, “OK, I got to fix this. I got to make this right.” And then he sends this email.

So, I hope that’s not what happened. But if it did, I get it, Wyatt. I also get angry.

**John:** So Wyatt is listening to Episode 80 of Scriptnotes, so quite a long ways back. So either he’s listening to Scriptnotes.net where all the back episodes are, or he has the 300-episode USB drive. So I could envision that maybe he pulled the USB drive out from his device and broke it in half, because his faith had been shattered.

Although his email does go on to say, “Love your show. Hope to send in a Three Page Challenge soon.”

**Craig:** Yeah, no, I think he calmed down. In my scenario he got a hold of himself. I get it.

**John:** You get it.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** All right. A thing that caused umbrage on Twitter this week was a tweet by–

**Craig:** That’s weird. That never happens on Twitter.

**John:** This is actually an article by Mike Ryan from Uproxx. And I first saw it as a tweet, but then I clicked through the article. We’ll link to the article. Mike Ryan was talking with his friends about Return of the Jedi. And they happened to be discussing the opening of Return of the Jedi, which if you’ve not seen it for a while involves a plan – well, a bunch of actions that are taken to free Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, which was he had been sold off at the end of Empire Strikes Back. And Mike and his friends were wondering, wait, what was the original plan before everything went south.

Craig, can you talk us through either what does happen in the movie or what might have been behind what was happening in the movie?

**Craig:** Well, I can try. So, this is a movie that we all know really, really well, generally speaking. So you’d think that we would have noticed this collectively many, many times before. This is a movie I’ve seen, I don’t know, probably 20 times since it came out in the early ‘80s. And then the question that he asked here, “If Luke’s plan to rescue Han from Jabba had worked perfectly, what would that plan have been?”

All right, well, great question. So here’s what happens roughly in this opening sequence. This rather long opening segment of Return of the Jedi. First, we know that Jabba the Hutt has Han Solo. He’s got him frozen in carbonite. So he is a prisoner. He’s like a decoration in Jabba’s palace.

We see that Luke has started his plan by sending in C-3PO and R2-D2. R2-D2 plays a little message that basically is like, hey, I know you’ve got Han. Let’s bargain for him and I’m giving you these droids kind of as a show of goodwill. And Jabba is like, great, I’ll take your droids and I’m not bargaining with you at all.

OK. So now the droids are there. We also reveal that Lando Calrissian is working in Jabba’s palace kind of clandestinely. Right? He’s incognito, disguised as one of the guards. We’re not sure what he’s doing exactly, but we know that he’s a good guy and he must have a plan, too.

Then, next, Princess Leia arrives. We don’t know it’s her at first because this little bounty hunter with a mask comes in. You know, who talks like that. And the bounty hunter is bringing Jabba another prisoner, Chewbacca. And the bounty hunter, you know, is bargaining for money and then Jabba makes a deal. And now Jabba has captured Chewie.

Later on that night, the bounty hunter is revealed to be Princess Leia. She tries to rescue Han Solo. And they are caught really easily by Jabba the Hutt who now enslaves Leia and makes her wear the crazy metal special bikini.

**John:** The iconic bikini.

**Craig:** The iconic bikini. At this point, at long last, Luke – the Jedi – shows up, does a quick Jedi mind-trick on some of the pig-faced guards. I know they have names. Whatever. And then he shows up and he basically tries to Jedi mind-trick Jabba and Jabba is like, no, that’s not going to work, hits a button, and Luke falls through the floor, lands in a pit, and has to face a big monster. I know it also has a name. I think that one is called the Rancor. And he beats the Rancor, but you can tell he was not at all planning on falling into the pit and having to face that thing, because he almost dies. But he doesn’t. He beats the Rancor. And then Jabba is like, “OK, fine. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to throw you all into the Sarlacc pit, which is terrible.”

And during the Sarlacc pit execution scene Luke gets everybody to sort of work together to kill Jabba and rescue Han and save everybody and off they go. That’s how that all works. At no point until this gentleman, this mind-blowing Mike Ryan, mentioned that that makes no damn sense did it ever occur to me that that makes no damn sense.

**John:** Yep. And here’s my theory about why you never worried about it. Is because I think we give special dispensation to opening sequences in movies, where we see a plan that’s already in the middle of action. For whatever reason we don’t go too deep into thinking about, wait, how did this all come to be? What are they exactly trying to do? What are the next steps? Because we’re enjoying it. So as long as we’re buying it moment by moment we’re like, oh “OK, well this is the next thing that’s happening.” We’re always curious like well what’s going to happen next.

Because most plans in movies, most heists if you think about like in Ocean’s 11 or any sort of big thing that has a plan, we’ve seen the characters make the plan. And there might have been certain details omitted, but we know what the general steps are supposed to be and so then when things go wrong we know that they went wrong because we saw all this.

But with opening sequences like this we don’t see any of that planning. And so we’re just assuming that they have some kind of plan. And as long as they seem to be behaving competently we just don’t kind of question it. So think back to any James Bond movie you’ve seen, they almost always start with some kind of big stunt sequence. It never really kind of makes sense how he got into that situation or why there’s a nubile young woman waiting for him at the end of it, but it’s James Bond so you just kind of go with it. And it’s interesting how for 20+ years we’ve just gone with it for Return of the Jedi.

**Craig:** Well, I’ll push back a little.

**John:** Sure.

**Craig:** So, for James Bond, those opening sequences are clearly picked up in media res, right? So we are in the middle of a plan and we don’t need to therefore know how he got into that place. What we’re excited to see is how he gets out of it. And each James Bond movie, with a few notable half exceptions, stand alone as their own stories. They are not sequels to prior movies.

Now, in this case, we don’t start in media res. We begin with a plan. So at this point in the beginning of the movie Jabba the Hutt only has one prisoner, which we know he got at the end of Empire Strikes Back. He doesn’t possess Chewbacca. He doesn’t possess R2-D2, or C-3PO, or Leia, or Luke, or Lando. And so we’re starting in the beginning, and Luke kind of just wings it. And then everybody seems to be winging it independently of each other. And I have to say even though I didn’t notice that this plan made no sense, now that I look at it and I see that it makes no sense it explains something to me about my own reaction and relationship with that movie, which is I don’t like it as much as the other two.

And one of the reasons I think I don’t like it as much as the other two is because that long opening sequence felt a little – character-wise it was always missing something for me. So, in The Empire Strikes Back, for instance, there’s a scene where Lando Calrissian sells out his friends to Darth Varder. And we can tell that Lando is conflicted because he’s trying to protect his own place, but you know, what are you going to do and he’s selling out a friend and he feels guilty. And all of that is good character stuff. There’s no character stuff in the beginning of this movie. Nobody is doing anything from character. Jabba just happens to be able to resist Jedi mind tricks. Luke doesn’t really seem like a very good Jedi, nor does he seem to have an interesting plan. It seems all a little light. And, yeah, you know, it’s not great. And I’m not sure that there is any way to logically explain the rationality behind his plan.

First of all, for this to make sense at all, Luke cannot know what Leia is doing. Right? Because what she’s doing has literally nothing to do with what he has done.

**John:** Yes. That is true. And if you look through this original article we’re going to link to, there are some alternative theories laid out about what we might be missing. What the original plan could have been that could have gotten us there, including the possibility that these people are actually kind of working independently. That like Leia had her own plan. And Luke had his own plan. They were essentially acting independently and really had no sense of what was going on.

But here’s where I will push back against you. You said like, well, this isn’t in media res. Clearly this is in media res to a large degree because Lando is somehow there. So he’s already part of something. He’s already in the middle of some thing is happening. Luke has already hidden his light saber inside R2-D2. So there was some thought of putting that thing in where he could get to it later on. But the question of like do they anticipate they were going to end up in the Sarlacc pit together at some point?

**Craig:** No.

**John:** That seems like an impossible stretch.

**Craig:** It’s crazy, yeah. No, that’s crazy. And also, you’re right, Lando is definitely in media res, but how? And why? What’s he been doing that whole time? What was his purpose there at any given point? And why would Luke hide his light saber in the droid? What’s the point? Just show up and start swinging it and kill people. I don’t get it.

**John:** The only thing I can sort of be happy about is that I know David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have just announced they’re going to be doing the three Star Wars movies. Apparently they’re all about how we got to this moment at the beginning of Jedi. That’s really–

**Craig:** I would watch it.

**John:** That’s where they’re going to spend $300 million to fill in this missing detail of how Luke got to this point.

**Craig:** I would love to do a kind of weird gritty – like a $10 million movie that’s just a gritty film about how Salacious Crumb came to end up sitting on Jabba’s lap like that. But like where he comes from, the whole Crumb family.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** And just living on the streets and hard times. Drugs. Drugs. And, you know, prostitution. And just like — he’s seen it all.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** And he’s lost his mind. He’s just lot it.

**John:** Yeah, but I mean maybe it’s not that bad of a gig for Salacious Crumb to be there, because you know he’s got – he has interesting people. I mean, he’s surrounded by interesting people all the time.

**Craig:** And he loves to laugh.

**John:** Yeah. And there’s lots of opportunity for comedy, which is a – he’s sort of like a Dobby the House Elf but in the Star Wars universe.

**Craig:** But I think he’s hiding an enormous amount of pain. I mean, that’s the story I want to see is sort of like what are you running from, man.

**John:** Yeah. Well I think the stories where you can take the villain and really re-contextualize him as an anti-hero and ultimately a protagonist, those are the most rewarding. So, again, I think that’s why – I mean, David and D.B. have told us secretly that this is really what their whole mission is. Is to fill in this crucial bit of logic behind this important piece of Star Wars canon.

So let’s try to generalize back out. This idea of opening sequences and plans where you don’t know what the characters are planning but the ones that work and the ones that don’t work. I’m thinking back to Pitch Perfect 3. And Pitch Perfect 3 opens with a sequence on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and suddenly Rebel Wilson and Anna Kendrick are there and they are trying to save the rest of the Bellas from something.

It’s absurd, but it also gets to play in with our expectations of like what kind of movie this is. You know, it’s Charlie’s Angels. It’s deliberately sort of nuts. And ultimately we’re going to come around to see that moment again.

So, it was crazy when we first see it in the movie. It’s crazy how it actually happens in the movie. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s fine for that kind of movie.

Other genres have much higher expectations of like these pieces all have to fit together.

**Craig:** Yeah, I mean, in comedy yes we do have a little bit more leeway on these things and they usually are not quite so complicated. But I can’t disagree with you. We have a grace period at the beginning of the film. People are more accepting and maybe you can get away with a few things that you wouldn’t be able to get away with later. But, there is a kind of weird hidden cost.

Nobody, you know, with rare exception people don’t have access to their – whatever the underpinnings are of their response to a story. There’s always going to be some weird impact that these things have on some people. And until I read this I didn’t realize that this was part of my – you know, it’s not that I don’t like it. I do. I just – I’m not a huge fan of that whole sequence. And I think now this is why. Because it just kept like – at one point he describes it, it’s becoming sort of like bad comedy. Because the plan is: droids show up, Jabba takes them. Chewie shows up. Jabba takes him. Leia shows up. Jabba takes her. Luke shows up. Jabba takes him. It’s just like what is this clown car being taken – and they definitely were not doing the whole “Don’t you understand I wanted to get arrested.” None of them wanted to get captured. Clearly.

Clearly. So it just became, I don’t know. I don’t know, Mike Ryan has really opened my eyes. And, you know, F-d up my head.

**John:** Yep. Now Craig, I know I have had experiences as a screenwriter where, over the course of development and then production, things that were simple and logical became much less simple and much less logical. And it’s maybe worth discussing sort of how these things happen. And we don’t know how it happened with the case of Star Wars. We don’t know whether this was the initial vision as written down in the script and this is what they shot, or if just a bunch of ideas all got thrown together and this is the result of a bunch of competing ideas being thrown together.

But in my experience when stuff doesn’t make sense, it wasn’t because the screenwriter said like, “I want to make the least sensible version of the sequence possible.” It was that people with strong opinions came in with specific agendas and someone had to find a way to match these specific agendas. So sometimes it was actor agendas. It was a studio saying we need more of this character, or could we shoot new stuff so this character is actually part of the sequence that they weren’t originally part of. Could we get rid of that scene that actually explains why they’re here and what they’re doing?

There are a lot of reasons why sequences which should make sense don’t end up making a lot of sense in final movies. Are there any other factors you’ve encountered over your years of working on movies?

**Craig:** Yeah. I consider logic to be a very dangerous weapon in the hands of certain people. And what happens is everyone is looking at a script and somebody might say, oh you know what, there’s a problem here. I don’t quite understand this. Or this doesn’t make sense. Or this maybe feels contradictory. And a good writer will attempt to solve problems from a place of character and simplicity and elegance. But a lot of other people, what they have is logic. They just have hard cold logic. And they will begin to add things to fix it. They are “helping it.”

So when you’re watching a movie and somebody suddenly just starts saying some stuff because apparently you need to hear it so that something makes sense, it’s rarely a screenwriter. It is typically a producer or a studio executive or somebody well-meaning who is attempting to solve a problem by just pouring logic ketchup all over it. But that is not good storytelling. It’s just fixing a problem. We don’t come to movies to see that. So I worry about that when that happens.

**John:** Yeah. And I would say in some ways the Star Wars situation is the opposite of that where no one is talking about what they’re actually trying to do. And so therefore it’s completely opaque. And it almost feels like there was a mandate of like all these characters need to be involved in this thing. Just introduce them separately. They can’t sort of be coming in as a block, except for C-3PO and R2-D2 because we always love to see them together. And everybody has to have heroic moments. And it is actually one of the challenges of supporting a large ensemble cast is finding things for each of those characters to individually do. And sometimes you end up with these kinds of sequences which are a little bit mish-moshy.

**Craig:** No question.

**John:** Any of these movies that we talk about that have sort of large ensemble casts – Charlie’s Angels, the Pitch Perfect movies – you want each of those characters to have their little moment of shine and spotlight. You want to get to them as quickly as you can. But in doing so you end up sometimes creating kind of Frankenstein sequences.

**Craig:** Without a doubt. I think that’s a really good point. There’s also a demand of sequels, because you’re not sort of meeting these fresh characters. I mean, Jabba is sort of a fresh character. But we’re not meeting fresh heroes like we do with say Lando or something like that in the second movie. So in sequels it’s basically, OK, everybody knows these people already. Give them stuff to do. What you don’t get to do are these quiet, like look how we meet Han Solo in Star Wars. He’s sitting at a table, chitchatting about his ship. And then another guy comes along and he has a chitchat with him and then he shoots him.

Well, by the time we get to the third movie, when people make their entrances they’re dressed up as bounty hunters and threatening to blow you up. And then they’re saving the one that they love. And he’s blind. And then another guy comes out and goes, “Ha-ha, I knew you were there and now you’re going to wear a bikini.” And you’re like, wait, this is what sequels do to you. And believe me, I’ve written enough of them. They are very, very difficult to write because all of the tools of surprise and freshness and introduction are gone. It’s tough.

**John:** It’s tough.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** The lesson we’ve learned. So I guess the takeaway we could give to our screenwriter friends is if you are hired to write the third movie in a giant franchise that’s sort of world-changing, be careful with your story logic.

**Craig:** Yeah. But also you could say the other lesson is don’t worry about it. That movie did pretty well.

**John:** No one will notice your story plot holes for another 20 years.

**Craig:** It’s literally another 20 years. And then two nerds will talk about it on a podcast. But even then you’ll be all right.

**John:** You’ll be just fine.

**Craig:** We should do some Three Page Challenges right?

**John:** We should absolutely.

**Craig:** It’s been so long.

**John:** It’s been a very long time. So I think the last time we did this was the Austin Three Page Challenges.

**Craig:** Oh my. Whoa. That’s like a half a year has gone by.

**John:** Maybe so. Or I could be forgetting another one, but anyway we have three great new entries that Megan has picked. So the general theme she decided for this one was point of view. So characters who have either limited point of view or sort of different point of views that are uncharacteristic of other movies. So we’ll start with Pudgy by Jay Emcee.

We’ll have all of these Three Page Challenges linked in the show notes, so you can read the PDFs along with us, but here’s a summary in case you’re driving in the car:

A 10-year-old named Pudge observes his neighborhood from his stoop. He plays a CD in is well-worn portable CD player and starts nodding along to the gritty East Coast hip hop. Phat Boy, who appears next to him in Timberland boots, died jeans, and a gold chain raps along like it’s his music because it is his music. The two sit side-by-side on the stoop in the freezing cold, pouring rain, and blazing heat.

Fat Boy’s outfit never changes. Pudge makes sandwiches for himself and Phat Boy, though Phat Boy has more sophisticated taste than the ingredients left by Pudge’s mom than the fridge can accommodate. Craig, get us started on Pudgy.

**Craig:** Well, I generally liked this. Just to start, I don’t know if there’s a reason why our writer Jay Emcee has not told us what city we’re in. It seems like it’s New York. If I see brownstones and I’m hearing East Coast hip hop then I’m feeling like it’s New York, but I’d love to know. Just helps.

And I like the way we revealed his imaginary friend, right? So this is sort of like Hip Hop Harvey. We have a character who sees an imaginary person that nobody else sees because he’s not real. And I liked the way that this guy was introduced. This is a smart way to introduce somebody. You have a fact. He’s not real. Well, there are a lot of uncreative, boring ways to show that, like I’m sitting there and he’s rapping and then I cut to somebody else’s POV and there’s nobody else there except for this little kid named Pudge. And then we go, “OK, we get it. That guy is not real.” And what I like is that he didn’t do that.

Instead, what he did was he showed time passing, and because Phat Boy never has to change his clothes, never gets wet in the rain, never gets hot in the heat, our suspicion, which I think we will all have from the jump that Phat Boy is not real is confirmed. That’s a creative way of doing this. So I really liked that.

And there’s an interesting promise of a story here. And I liked that there was a kind of well-worn relationship between the two of them. I think sometimes people will create a kind of internal relationship that you would have say with an imaginary friend, somebody who lives in your head. And once those two characters start talking it’s like, wait, have you guys met each other because you’ve lived with each other your entire lives. There should be a complete, total, easy intimacy between you two. And that’s exactly what you see here.

I don’t quite get what’s happening on page three in terms of the food. I was a little thrown by that because Phat Boy seems to fill a role which is to be the kind of musical hip hop star that maybe Pudge wants to be, but Phat Boy also has really specific and quite extensive dialogue about how picky he is about food. If that’s meant to just be kind of flavor and sort of fun flavor, I don’t know if we need basically six-eighths of a page or whatever it is, three-quarters of a page to deal with that. I would probably limit that and get quickly to what we want to know which is what is Phat Boy doing for Pudge. Why does he exist for Pudge?

**John:** I agree. So I think “aioli” is a funny word. It’s used a little bit strangely here. Aioli is mostly a mayonnaise kind of situation rather than a mustard situation and it’s confusing that we haven’t gotten to the mayonnaise situation when he starts complaining about the aioli. So there’s some sequencing issues on page three that don’t really track for me. But I mostly agree with you. By page three I got it and I’m ready to sort of know what kind of movie I’m headed in for. Because at this point you’ve established this is a really good Hip Hop Harvey kind of situation, but I have a hunch that it’s not just about the two of them and their relationship. There’s going to be a third thing and I’m curious what that third thing is going to be. What does Pudge want? And he hasn’t really expressed anything that he wants.

We sort of get his situation. Now we know what his normal situation is. What is the change that’s going to come? What is the thing that he’s yearning for that’s going to take him on this two-hour journey? So, but I really liked the writing. I agree with you that the way we’re introducing Phat Boy and sort of going through the time passage is really well done. The observations of the other people on the other brownstones are really smart. It’s a little central casting, but it also feel specific to the thing he’s trying to do.

A moment that didn’t quite work for me is on page one he opens up his CD player and takes a look at the disc so we can see it. And then he closes it and plays it again. Like, well, you wouldn’t do that. And so maybe we need to find a way to introduce the name of Phat Boy without doing this. Or maybe he’s sitting down at the start of this and he’s putting in his headphones and we see the disc spin up or something. But it felt weird to really make a big show of opening it, looking at the label, and starting it again.

**Craig:** I had the same feeling, too. That was the one bit of clunky exposition and you don’t need it because you can just see it spinning inside or you can just see that he’s written Phat Boy, Money Hungry on his sneakers because that’s his thing, or whatever it is. Like there’s ways – I mean, kids write the names of their favorite artists all over things. There’s other ways to do it. And, by the way, he’s rapping. I mean, rap stars have been known to announce themselves in their songs. So, you know, that’s OK too. I think he could do that. So, yeah, that felt a little kind of, yeah, like ‘80s TV.

**John:** Yep. Because I’m a person obsessed about fonts, I’m going to talk about the fonts for a second. So this script is written in Courier Prime, which is the typeface I commissioned. It looks beautiful. It is delightful. But there’s other fonts used in here, too. So on page one where it says Phat Boy, Money Hungry that is in a bold type face, like it’s some sort of Sans-Serif bold. On page two there’s a note from his mom says, “Fresh cold cuts in the drawer. No music after 8pm. Xoxo, Ma.” Some people get really annoyed by this. For me, it’s fine. You’re trying to break something out as the thing you’re going to be reading on the screen and so to stick it in a different font for me is kind of fine. It doesn’t feel too cheaty for me. But I’m curious what you think, Craig.

**Craig:** I have no problem with it whatsoever. In general, I’m so bored with reading scripts that the one thing that blows my mind is this notion that people who read scripts are desperate for absolute violent conformity. That there must be always one Courier and this…and I’m just thinking oh my god if my job were to read scripts all day I would be desperate for one little blob of some other font there every now and again just to wake me the F up. So I have no problem. As long as it’s purposeful, and here it was, cool.

**John:** Cool. Last note on the title page. It just Pudgy, Written by Jay Emcee. That’s all fantastic. If I were to be turning in these three pages to somebody or showing them in the world, I might stick a date on them just so I could show when I wrote it. I would also put an email address just so if somebody loved them they could reach me. Because with a name like Jay Emcee, which doesn’t even feel like your real name, no one is going to be able to track you down otherwise. And so it’s good work. So, make sure that people can find you to tell you that it’s good work.

**Craig:** Yeah. I liked it. Good job, Jay.

**John:** Cool. Do you want to take the next one?

**Craig:** Yeah, what should we do? Which one do you think I should do?

**John:** Do you want to do Trucker?

**Craig:** Yeah, man, I’ll do Trucker. I’ll do it. Sure. Trucker, written by Erno van der Merwe. That’s a pretty Dutch name right there. Merwe. That’s a great name. Anyway, Trucker. So, here’s the story with this:

Sarah, 13 and tiny, observes a butterfly as Baron, 40s, packs up a truck. They prepare to drive off, but Sarah sensing that something is off asks if everything is OK. Baron offers a reassuring smile. As they drive, Sarah points out that they haven’t taken a vacation in a while and she pitches a beach in the Caribbean that she’s seen in a magazine. She shows him the picture and it does look lovely. She’s flipping through the magazine when Baron shouts at her to get down. She scrambles down to the floor of the truck’s cockpit. They are approaching a police checkpoint. An officer shines her flashlight in as she inspects the truck. It’s tense. Finally, she waves Baron on.

Good summary there, Megan. I like that.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** So, John, kick us off with Erno van der Merwe’s Trucker.

**John:** All right, so if you’re looking at the PDF of this you’ll notice that Erwin has chosen to sort of keep all the lines on the left hand margin. So they’re not paragraphs, they’re just single lines. That’s a style. It doesn’t really bother me. I don’t think it especially works for this script and we’ll talk about why.

I had a bigger problem with, actually, descriptions overall. And so I don’t know if English is Erno’s first language. I don’t know where Erno is from. It’s not the US because there’s definitely British choices in here. But the overall choice of words didn’t help serve the story especially well. So, start with the truck. First line, “SARAH is lying on top of a truck’s bonnet.” So, bonnet, the hood. This is the hood of the car. We know this is a British word. But, wait, what kind of truck is this? Because when I saw this I’m like, oh, it’s like a pickup truck, it’s something like that. But, no, it’s a big truck. And so if it’s a full big truck, how are you lying on the top of a big semi-truck? I just had a hard time envisioning what kind of truck this was.

Later on, you know, halfway down page one we are INT. COCKPIT – LATE AFTERNOON. I don’t think they call that a cockpit in British English either.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** That is the cab of the truck. Or just say INT. TRUCK because we know that we are in the part of the truck that you can sit in, the cabin. But don’t call it a cockpit because suddenly I’m in space, or I’m in a jet. So, when I see words that aren’t the actual words for things it just makes me lose a little faith in the writer and the writing. And so pick those right words because in screenwriting you have so few words. They really all have to be the right words.

A few other small things. Second line, “An orange sun is lighting up her face.” An orange sun? There’s two orange suns? The orange sun. Orange sunlight. Sunlight is lighting up her face. Just giving us an orange sun, are we looking at the sun or are we looking at her face. And there’s a whole subject predicate thing that happens when you have sentences this short that we focus on, “Wait, what are we actually looking at here.” And by line two I was losing a little bit of faith.

Craig, talk me through what you’re experiencing.

**Craig:** Well, yes, so we definitely do have a non-native English speaker, or American English speaker at the very least. You know this from the very first scene header, EXT. PETROL STATION. So, petrol is what they call gasoline in the UK. And bonnet is a UK term as well. And in general I’m OK – look, I just had to go through this process with every single page of Chernobyl putting in Briticisms and taking out Americanisms just because everybody is UK or European on the crew and in the cast. So, you can write flashlight, but they call it a torch and, you know, why just not make it easier for them. Call it a torch, you know.

So, I sympathize and I’m not going to go after Erno so much on that stuff. I also really weirdly love this format. It is its own weird format. I don’t know if Erno is doing this because he’s just cool and doesn’t like to follow instructions. Or if he’s doing it because he doesn’t know. Either way, it was kind of cool.

I agree with you that there were some descriptive problems. There was some confusions. I do need to know what kind of truck we’re dealing with. It appeared to me that what we were talking about was a semi, like the kind of truck–

**John:** Tractor trailer.

**Craig:** Yeah. Tractor Trailer. That hauls a big thing. I don’t know how the hell she would get up on the hood or bonnet of that truck. They are way up there. And I don’t think she could just hop on down easily either. She jumps off the bonnet. She jumps off that bonnet, she’s dropping a good six feet I think. So, yeah, I need to know what kind of truck we’re dealing with. But I really liked the back and forth between these two. I’m curious, this is good mystery as opposed to confusion. I don’t know what their relationship is. I don’t think they’re father and daughter. It seems to me more like a situation where he is taking her somewhere where she can be safe. That maybe somebody is looking for her. I just got that feeling.

So I liked the way that they went back and forth. I liked how much more she talked than he did, which felt very real to me. I got so much of her personality just from the way she kind of pushed him and kidded around with him a bit. She seems like she’s almost in charge, and then he gets in charge because here come the police. That was all really good. So I actually think there’s some really good character work here. There’s some good back and forth. It kept me going.

In general, Erno, you know, if you can sort of pull back a little bit on some of the fancier descriptions, because they do distract a little bit from the nice spare nature of your characters and their dialogue. For instance, “The truck roars to life and shoots out a ball of smoke. They drive off towards the sunset into the night. Slowly disappearing over the glazed horizon.” I get it. And I know exactly what you’re seeing. But, when you read it like that, it starts to sort of mush over into Bad Poetryville. Especially from your formatting.

So, I would maybe get a little – just pull back a little bit on some of that stuff. But I kind of loved it. I did.

**John:** OK, so I did not love it. And for me it fell apart in the character work really. I thought all of the scene description lines where he’s trying to do essentially the parentheticals about what’s going on between the characters, it was too much and it didn’t really work. So, if we took those all out and just had what was just in dialogue I could track it better, but I still wouldn’t love it. So, let’s just hear just the dialogue. Sarah says, “You know, we haven’t taken a vacation in a while.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. We’re always so busy. We need to relax every now and then.” “Look doesn’t that seem really cool?” “It looks nice.” “Ah-huh. It says it’s in the Caribbean. We should go.”

So, if I had that all together as one piece, I would be fine with it because I get what’s happening in there. I get sort of what she’s trying to do. He’s kind of engaged but not fully engaged in it. But instead in the actual what we have on page two is, “Baron knows what she’s trying to do. Always trying to be the optimistic one. He decides to entertain her.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Yes! She has his attention. Now it’s easy.”

“Yeah. We’re always so busy. You need to relax every now and then.”

“She sits up on her knees and turns her back. Shuffles in the back of the truck and pulls out a pile of magazines. Falls back into her seat and gives him a bright smile. Baron shakes his head. He is slowly loosening up. She takes the top magazine and opens it up to its centerfold. Holding it in front of her face she shows it to Baron.”

All of that action that he’s describing along the way is getting in the way of understanding what the real dynamics are between these two people which was done perfectly well in the dialogue. So, that’s my frustration with the character work in here. It’s making it seem like a whole bunch of stuff has happened when really nothing has happened and just dialogue in a screenplay can do that work for you.

**Craig:** I can’t disagree with that. I think it’s also exacerbated by the format because what would be three lines of action are seven lines of action when you present it this way. And that’s a long bit of page real estate to cover to get to the next line. And I agree. I think just pulling back on these descriptions would help a lot. But I could see his face and I could see her face. And I could see the place and I could see what she was kind of needling him on.

I’m kind of forgiving a bunch of that, but I will say Erno that don’t rely on people forgiving you anything. Maybe I’m just in a weirdly good mood today.

**John:** A generous mood. Then on page three, so this is the first real action of the piece which is like they’re slowing down because of the roadside check ahead. Here’s where Erno’s style is getting in his way a bit here. Because breaking it down into single sentences can work for moments of tension and sort of give you a sense of shot by shot by shot by shot. But by not putting any white space in here and just stacking the lines it is a real temptation to give up. And when you see a big block of text like that you’re like “I don’t know what to do with that.” That’s why poetry is broken into stanzas. You’ve got to give us a little space here so we will actually follow and see what’s important and what the changes are as we’re going through this.

**Craig:** Can’t argue with that either.

**John:** Cool. All right, Erno thank you for sending in your pages. Next up we have an untitled script by Sarah Paradise:

Lou Abern, a woman in her 30s, is getting viciously beaten by Keenan, who is also in her 30s. Both women are beautiful, tough, and fighting like they mean it in a glamorous LA nightclub. Onlookers heckle and cheer. Keenan grabs Lou by the collar and drags her across the bar top, sending all the glasses to the floor in chards.

Mitch shouts for them to stop from behind the bar. After a vicious bout of wrestling, Keenan emerges victorious. Lou exits to the alleyway and stretches her sore shoulder. Keenan playfully scolds her for giving her a small cut on the face. Lou counters that it’s not like she has a photoshoot tomorrow. Keenan mentions a movie that she’s working on that they need a stunt woman. Lou says she has retired from stunts but Keenan says she wasn’t asking.

Mitch pays them for their performance, but it was less than they agreed on. He scolds them for not avoiding the bar top like he told them. Glassware is expensive.

Craig, what did you think?

**Craig:** OK, so the generosity is over. I have many issues. Issue number one, we meet Lou Abern who is blonde and we meet Keenan who gets one name for some reason who is black. And they are women in a bar and they are having a crazy fight. Like a full-on punch you in the face fight, throw you over bars, smash into glassware. They land on a booth. They jump on booths, grabbing each other. At one point one of them slams headfirst into the end of a bar.

And this is not on a movie set. This is in an actual bar. And people are going crazy. And they’re shouting drink orders because apparently in the world of this movie people only order drinks at bars when two other people are fighting, when in reality when two people are fighting in a bar everybody backs the hell away because it’s dangerous.

Regardless of that, the next scene we see them and it’s like, “Oh, get it? They’re stuntwomen and they are putting this on kind of like professional wrestling to fool people into thinking there is a fight because according to this script that’s what gets people to buy drinks.” By the way, this has never happened in any bar in the world. And despite the fact that they have been punched in the face and had their heads smashed and fallen, it’s no problem. Keenan actually runs out and is like, “Wee!”

And they have kind of banter. So, which is it? Am I supposed to watch this fight and go “Oh my god this is a crazy fight. I understand that everybody is screaming for a reason. It’s a wild fight.” Or, is it just fake? Because when I watch professional wrestling I know it’s not a real fight. Everybody in the crowd knows it’s not a real fight. People don’t just punch each other in the face over and over and not fall down or bleed. And that’s what’s happening here.

The page two and three is a long discussion that feels mostly quippy and fake. I don’t know anything about Lou. I don’t anything about her. I don’t know where she’s from. I don’t know how she thinks. The way she talks is not particularly different than the way Keenan talks. I don’t know anything about Keenan. I just know that the two of them are stuntwomen who do this scam that isn’t real. And then Mitch is like central casting jerky sleaze ball. Like, “Sorry ladies, you broke a bunch of glass.” This all felt fake to me.

So top to bottom, I would say this to the writer. This is decently structured. You have a good sense of shape. You know how to begin, middle, and end a scene. You get pace. You have all these things working for you that a lot of people don’t. Like a lot of the stuff that’s in between the words. Where you’re going wrong is just simply believability. You have created unbelievable – and I see this so many times. You come up with what you think is a good idea and then you just start jamming this non-reality into words using the skill that you clearly have to do so.

So, I don’t believe the reality of this. I don’t believe the premise. I don’t believe that that’s the discussion they would have. I don’t believe the guy in the bar. I just didn’t believe any of it.

**John:** I liked this so, so, so much more than you did. I thought this first page was delightful. And I – and this is just people read things different ways – I read this as a crazy knock down roadside bar brawl that I have not seen two women ever have before. It seemed over the top, but kind of delightfully over the top. When they smashed the glassware on the bar I’m like, “Oh, that’s so cheesy, we’ve seen that so many times.” But then I was delighted to know that it was all faked. I guess I started reading this thinking like, OK, well this isn’t probably real. This is not actually the way it should go. And when you read it with that intention it’s like, “Oh yeah, I can see sort of kind of why they’re doing it.” Does the whole thing make sense? I don’t think we have enough information to know the degree to which the audience, the bar patrons, know that this is real or know that this is not real. I think it would be more fun if midway through this fight we sense that the people were there for the show. That this is a thing that they do. Because I would go to see that. If I could see two really good stunt people having a staged brawl in a public space that could be great. If I knew they weren’t really fighting that could be really, really cool.

So, I think it would sell drinks. I think there would be a reason why you would go to that fight, that bar to see that kind of fight.

The dialogue afterwards is not fantastic, but it’s getting us out of that setup and we’re trying to establish who Lou is and sort of what her background is. I don’t think it’s great. And I think we need to have more spin on Lou to know sort of what it is she tries to want. All we’re getting out of this right now is that she does not want to be a stunt woman anymore. And that doesn’t really seem to track with the brawl we just saw.

**Craig:** No. And also if this were in some skanky roadside bar somewhere I guess maybe. This is in a Los Angeles nightclub. You can’t get a Los Angeles nightclub to probably allow people to dance on a table, much less sponsor brawls that break glass. The liability problem is insane.

**John:** Well, but it’s fake glass.

**Craig:** Fake?

**John:** I took this whole – yes.

**Craig:** It’s not fake.

**John:** Well, I chose to believe that the things they were doing were stunt person kinds of things that they could survive. The sort of things that stunt people could do and so that stuff was deliberately staged, but some of the stuff that they broke was stuff they weren’t supposed to be breaking.

But I would say I totally believe that an LA nightclub would do it just because they want to get desperate attention. There was a bar on Santa Monica that used to have like Cirque du Soleil acrobats on Friday and Saturday nights who do the stuff like true acrobatic stuff above the crowd.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** That was really cool. This is not that different than Cirque du Soleil acrobatics in a bar.

**Craig:** It is massively different.

**John:** I don’t think so at all.

**Craig:** I can’t think of something more different. Here’s the thing, for me at least, if people believe that this is a real fight then a bunch of them are going to call the police. If they don’t believe–

**John:** So where on page one does it say that the crowd believes this is real? I see, “The crowd REACTS riotously to this while MITCH,” so they’re shouting, they’re cheering.

**Craig:** Here’s what I see. I see she’s punched in the face. That means it is real. You don’t get actually punched in the face in movies. They fake punch. She’s punched in the face. That’s a real fight. In fact, if you’re faking a fight and you punch somebody in the face it has now crossed over into a real fight. But, also, you’ve got drunk men heckling them. She crashes into – she gets kicked in the stomach. Again, real.

**John:** See, I guess I don’t understand why you believe that this fight has to be real, because we’ve seen good fake fighting a lot of times.

**Craig:** Because he’s selling it – or he or she – they’re selling it as real. I’m looking through this thing and I’m like so she gets her head slammed into the end of the bar and falls to the ground. Defeated, she rolls over and looks at the ceiling, breathing hard. That’s not from anyone’s POV. That’s meant to see like – that’s that shot at the end of a fight when someone is like, “Ow, that hurt. I lost.” And there’s broken glass, which is not fake glass. It’s real because at the end he says, “I’ll go bankrupt buying glassware.” Also, stunt people don’t smash into real glasses because they’d cut themselves and die.

None of this makes sense to me. I don’t get it at all. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I just think if I saw a trailer for this movie I would be like, “Fake, not going.”

**John:** All right. That’s fine. I think there is an interesting idea here. I don’t think that pages two and three work especially well. But let’s go back to the actual writing on the page. I thought if this were meant to be a real fight, so take out the fact that it’s in a bar, just the action of two people having a knock-down, drag-out fight, it was pretty good writing. I never jumped out of the action writing.

**Craig:** Totally.

**John:** And that’s a hard thing because this first page is nothing but action. There’s no dialogue at all. And it got me all the way through the page and that’s a hard thing to do on a page one. So I want to give her props for that.

**Craig:** 100%. In fact, I liked page one so much that when page two showed up I got super angry because I thought that it was just undermining something that was good. Like I agree with you. I’m watching these two women in an LA nightclub having a drag-out, vicious physical battle, and they’re not like two 21 year olds with long hair and high heels who are kind of, you know, having that fight that we see on YouTube or World Star. This is like – like they could kill each other. These are two tough women going at it and I love that. And I was like who is this lady and what is her problem and how did she end up here. And then I get to the second page and I’m like, “Oh, never mind.”

**John:** Never mind.

**Craig:** This is baloney. It’s all baloney.

**John:** All right, I guess we both agree that page one is really good. We disagree on whether pages two and three deny the premise that this could ever be a real thing.

**Craig:** Welcome to real life, author of this script. This is how it goes. And here’s the good news. It doesn’t matter who doesn’t like it. It only matters who does like it. So, in this case, you would succeed, at least if John and I were in the business of buying screenplays.

**John:** Which we are not.

**Craig:** God no. What a silly business.

**John:** It is. I got asked to participate in an article that was being written about the death of the spec script market. And I was like I don’t know that it’s dead. I don’t know anything. I don’t try to sell spec scripts, so I’m the worst person to ask for it.

**Craig:** Yeah. Spec script market, well it’s like this new phase of the spec script market where there’s no longer a spec script market. It’s a spec project market where people will go around – Rawson just did this.

**John:** Of course.

**Craig:** Where you come up with an idea, you find an actor that’s meaningful for studios. You find a director or you are also the director. And then you go studio to studio and say here’s our package. It’s what Stephen Gaghan did with Dr. Doolittle and it’s what Rawson just did with the Rock, with Dwayne, on – what is it, a skyscraper movie?

**John:** That’s the one he already shot. So the next one is called Red Notice, I think. So.

**Craig:** Yeah. So it was a huge, huge deal. And so you go and you go to like five studios. Five studios used to all read a script on a Saturday and then get into a bidding war on a Sunday. Now, you go around to every movie studio on Monday and Tuesday and with just a meeting and a presentation and they’re bidding on something where there is no script yet on Wednesday. Fascinating. But it is akin to the same kind of market.

**John:** It is. It’s just a different kind of thing. And there have always been spec scripts that went out with talent attached. This is sort of a super version of that.

**Craig:** Yeah. I will say this much, and not good news for everybody listening. The barrier to entry for this version of a spec market is way higher. Way higher. It’s rough.

**John:** It’s tough.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** All right. Let’s wrap up our Three Page Challenge by thanking our three entrants to the Three Page Challenge. If you have a Three Page Challenge you would like to send in to us, just go to johnaugust.com/threepage. It’s all spelled out there. And in there you’ll find the instructions for what we’re looking for, how to attach a PDF. You’ll sign a little thing that says it’s OK for us to talk about your three pages on the air. And we might look through it.

So, Megan reads everything that comes in. So, send in your three pages if you have three pages you think we should discuss on a future episode of Scriptnotes.

All right, it’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is also font related. It’s called What the Font? And I may have talked about this years ago, but the app sort of stopped working and now it’s working again, so let me describe what it is.

So often I’ll be out in the world and I’ll see a type face and wonder what is that type face. Like I kind of recognize it but I want to know specifically what it is. So I pull up my phone, I open What the Font? It has a little camera. I click, take a photo of it. It scans it and tells me what typeface that is. It is a thing that is delightful for me. So I think if you are a type nerd like I am you will enjoy this.

There’s a web version of it, so if you’re just finding stuff on the web you can make a screenshot and do it through. But mostly I use the camera on my phone to do it, and it’s great. It’s so very useful. It’s put out by the people who sell a lot of typefaces so that’s really the business model behind it is they’re trying to sell you these typefaces that you identify. But it’s really good, so I recommend it. What the Font?

**Craig:** You know, nothing is as saucy as a font-based joke. What the Font?

**John:** What the Font?

**Craig:** So fonty. That is the most John August thing I can imagine. Here is the most Craig Mazin thing I can imagine. My One Cool Thing this week is Weird Al Yankovic’s Hamilton Polka. He has done a very bizarre kind of overture style summary of the show Hamilton by the great Lin-Manual Miranda. But he has done it in polka style. It is disturbing. It is weird. I love it. And you can enjoy it too, for free, on the YouTube.

**John:** Nice. That’s actually interesting. I mean, YouTube feels like the right place for Weird Al Yankovic to live. I mean, I have always perceived him as being a comedy and really kind of video person. And so YouTube feels like a very good fit for him.

**Craig:** Weird Al Yankovic, his career is fascinating. He has had this remarkable longevity. You know, a lot of these – you would think, like “Oh well, it’s a novelty act. It will come and go.” When you were a kid did you ever listen to Dr. Demento?

**John:** I was just about to ask about Dr. Demento. Of course I did.

**Craig:** Yeah. So Dr. Demento for the vast majority of you who are too young to know what the hell we’re talking about. Like, OK, first of all there used to be a thing called radio. And then you would tune into a station. And on some random night in your town, whatever your local weirdo station was, Dr. Demento would come on. It was a nationally syndicated radio program. And it was just this fun, old, kind of dorky nerdy guy who curated novelty records. And novelty records and comedy songs have been around forever. But you can’t really point to any one act other than Weird Al Yankovic that lasted beyond maybe two songs.

I mean, most of them it was like, “Well, there’s the guy who sang One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People Eater. And there’s the guy who did Monster Mash. And there’s the guy who did, you know, whatever it was, like Fish Heads. And here’s Weird Al Yankovic with two decades and multiple albums.” And it’s remarkable. He’s just unstoppable. I love it.

**John:** So we will put a link in the show notes to Dr. Demento, the Wikipedia article. I am finding out that Dr. Demento is still alive. He is 76 years old. His real name is Barret Eugene Hansen. I don’t think we would have a Weird Al Yankovic without his radio program.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Oh radio. It was nice.

**Craig:** You know what? This is amazing. Dr. Demento you’re saying is 76 years old now?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Because he seemed like he was 76 when I was listening to him when I was 12. He’s always been 76.

**John:** Craig, I assume you are not watching The Crown on Netflix.

**Craig:** Well, I watched a bunch of the first season because it was part of my general Jared Harris deep dive. And I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really, really good. I loved – particularly it was an episode about his portrait being made. Churchill’s portrait being made, which I thought was fascinating. But, no, I haven’t gotten around to the second season. I’m scared because I suddenly realized, “Oh god, The Crown will never stop because, you know, they’ve got many decades to go.”

**John:** Yeah. They’re jumping ahead quite quickly. But the second season is fantastic. The reason why I ask is because I’m looking up that he’s 76 years old. I was watching an episode last night that was largely about Philip, and Philip is 96 years old. I had no idea he was still – I mean, I knew he was alive, I just didn’t have a sense that like he’s 96 years old and still a person in public life. That’s kind of amazing.

I intend to be a person who is 96 years old and still in public life. That’s my goal.

**Craig:** Well, you know, there’s a possibility that right around before we croak they’ll come up with a way to just keep us alive forever.

**John:** Whether we’ll hit that magic spot right now. I think our kids probably will.

**Craig:** Yeah. If they want it. If they want it, you know? Yeah, I mean, who needs it.

**John:** Who needs it?

**Craig:** Ugh, enough already.

**John:** That’s our depressing way of ending this episode of Scriptnotes. Our show is produced by Megan McDonnell. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Matthew also did our intro/outro. If you have an intro or an outro, or really more an outro, you can send us a link at johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions or follow up like the follow up we answered today.

You can find us on Facebook. Search for Scriptnotes Podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for Scriptnotes. Leave a review there if you can.

All seven episodes of Launch are now up and available. That series is basically done, so I’m really happy with how it turned out. If you are person who doesn’t like to listen to series until they’re done, well, now it’s done, so you can hear it all together.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. If you have a Three Page Challenge you want to send in it’s johnaugust.com/threepage, all spelled out.

You can find all the back episodes of Scriptnotes at Scriptnotes.net or on the USB drives we sell at store.johnaugust.com.

**Craig:** You sell them.

**John:** Well, I guess Shopify technically sells them, but they exist in the world.

**Craig:** Mm-hmmm.

**John:** Mm-hmmm. Craig, have a great week.

**Craig:** You too, John. See you soon.

**John:** Thanks. Bye.

Links:

* [We Dare You To Explain Luke’s Plan To Rescue Han In ‘Return of the Jedi’](https://uproxx.com/movies/what-was-lukes-plan-star-wars-return-of-the-jedi/) by Mike Ryan for Uproxx
* Three Pages by [Jay Emcee](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/Jay_Emcee_PUDGY.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Erno van der Merwe](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/Erno_van_der_Merwe_TRUCKER.pdf)
* Three Pages by [Sarah Paradise](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/Sarah_Paradise.pdf)
* What the Font? [site](https://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/) and [app](https://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/mobile/)
* Weird Al Yankovic’s [Hamilton Polka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v0c6smpHSk)
* [Dr. Demento](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Demento)
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
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**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 332 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the podcast, we’ll be discussing suspense, and how to use it in your script. We’ll also be answering listener questions on titling scripts, alternative sluglines, and creative paralysis.

**Craig:** Hmm.

**John:** But, Craig, first, Happy New Year.

**Craig:** Happy New Year to you, John. And, you know, while I was in fact making fun of how nasally you are in my introduction there, I am a little concerned because you do have a bit of a cold. I don’t want people to freak out.

**John:** I will be OK. So, I had a cold. The cold has passed. Dr. Craig has now diagnosed me with a sinus infection, which is what I suspect it will be. So, listeners might not be aware that I’ve actually been traveling for 17 days. I’ve spent the last 17 days in a hotel room with my family.

**Craig:** Oh god.

**John:** Which is very tight quarters. And I’m looking forward to be back in Los Angeles in my normal environment, but it has been lovely to spend so much time with my family.

**Craig:** Listen, I love spending time with the family, too. My family, we will be on the road ourselves next week for a little post-Christmas vacation, before they go back to school.

**John:** That’s nice.

**Craig:** But the whole one room thing, see, you have one kid, so the one room thing still makes sense. I have the two kids, a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old. No.

**John:** No, they’ve got to have their own room.

**Craig:** Now we’re either conjoining rooms or we’re Airbnbs, because you know what, honestly, they don’t want to be in a room with us and we definitely do not want to be in a room with them.

**John:** Yeah. I definitely understand that split and the necessity of that, although I grew up with – in my family we had a trailer originally, and then a motorhome, and so I spent a tremendous amount of time with just me, my parents, and my brother in a very, very small environments. And I think it was actually helpful. I certainly have learned to share space better because of that.

**Craig:** Well, you had probably a much nicer childhood than I did. When we did go on vacations, they were always – I was not on a plane until I was in college. Did you know that?

**John:** Yeah. I did not know that. Not a flyer before then.

**Craig:** Believe me, I wanted to. I was desperate to fly. Now, of course, I look back at those days and I think, oh, how sweet. All I want to do now is not get on planes. But, we would drive. So we would drive from Staten Island to Hershey, Pennsylvania, or we would take Amtrak. We took Amtrak to Disney World. I do not recommend this. But wherever we would go, or we would drive to Washington, DC. And then we would always be in one hotel room, with the two double beds, and I would get into bed with dad, and my sister Karen would get into bed with mom. And we’re still talking about this.

My mother had this thing about — there could be no motion in the bed, or she would get very, very angry. And Karen, of course, would occasionally have to turn over. You know? Or move. And then my mother would say, and we would all hear it, “Stop shaking the bed. You’re making me nauseous.” And to this day, anytime my sister and I happen to pass by a bed, a mattress, a bed store, it doesn’t matter, one of us will say, “Stop shaking the bed. You’re making me nauseous.”

**John:** Ugh, yeah.

**Craig:** Yeah, that was vacation.

**John:** Yeah, my problem is, of course, because of this nasal infection I am snoring a bit. And so I have my Breathe Right strips and I’m doing my best, but I do annoy my daughter with my snores.

Before we hit to the main topic, Craig, what is your next year going to be like? Because you have a whole TV show that you have to start shooting this year?

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s going to be gnarly. I was just looking at my travel schedule for late January into February, and the next leg of my journeys goes LA, Amsterdam, Vilnius, London, Vilnius, London, Los Angeles. That’s going to be fun.

So, for scouting, and casting, and all this other stuff. And then we start in earnest in April, so I’ll be out probably late March for rehearsals, read-throughs. And then I’ll be staying for a while as well for shooting. I don’t think I’m going to stay for the whole thing, but we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t think I’m going to need to. It’s the pleasure of having, A, a director that I love, and B, one director for everything.

If you have different directors doing different episodes, as you know, the executive producer/show creator kind of needs to be there a lot because you’re supervising multiple directors doing multiple episodes. And it’s difficult. Dan and Dave, for instance, who do Game of Thrones, they have different directors doing their episodes. I mean, occasionally they’ll have one director doing multiples. But they’ve never had a season where one did all of them. That would be impossible. They’d never get the show done.

In fact, because of the amount of locations they have and the sort of parallel shooting they do, Dan and Dave I think oftentimes will split up. And one of them will be on one continent, like Iceland, I know that’s not a continent but it’s part of a continent. And the other one will be in another one in wherever they’re doing, I don’t know, Bravos. And in this way they get the show done.

I won’t have that issue because we’re not doing quite as many episodes. It’s not quite as absurd a size of production, of course. And we don’t have that insane multiplicity of locations. But, yeah, it’s going to be a trick. I’ve done a bunch of the LA to London trips where you go and you land and you start working for four days, and then you come back. And those are rough.

**John:** They are rough. Yeah, I did a lot of that for Big Fish this past year. So, my 2018 is very busy at the start. So my book Arlo Finch comes out the first week of February, and then I go on a two-week book tour. So I will be flying from LA to San Francisco, to Denver, to Dallas, to Chicago, to New York, to Philadelphia, to Detroit, and then I think I’m done after two weeks of that.

**Craig:** Weird. You seem to be missing the Deep South.

**John:** I have Dallas. Well, that’s not the Deep South. It’s south-ish.

**Craig:** No Atlanta?

**John:** There’s no Atlanta in this trip. I’m sure there will be some in the future. But I do have trips in January down to Tennessee. So, that counts.

**Craig:** That does in deed count. Well, that’s going to be quite the journey for you. I’m really interested to see, because we as screenwriters, we don’t really ever have to do these things – like for instance, friend-of-the-podcast, Mike Birbiglia, as a professional standup comedian, part of his life is the road. These tours. We don’t really do these things, but every now and then people like you, or Derek Haas, write novels, and you have to do the book tour.

And when you do the book tour, John, out of curiosity, does the publisher, do they kind of – how does this work economically?

**John:** Oh, the publishers pay for everything. So the publishers fly me places and there’s going to be a person who is there helping me through every day and getting me on the next plane. So that is – god bless them, because I would not be able to do that myself.

**Craig:** That’s amazing.

**John:** But my days will be very busy because I will be doing elementary school visits in the morning, and then I have live events most nights. And then in the morning I fly to a new place and start the whole process again. So, probably next week’s episode I’ll have all the details about all the live shows I’ll be doing. I know there will be ones in San Francisco and Denver and Chicago and New York. So, if you want to come out and see me, you’ll have your chance.

**Craig:** And speaking of the economics of it, what do I get for providing half of the promotional platform here to you? Is there bartering or money?

**John:** Craig, I am happy to sign you a copy of Arlo Finch. I’ve been signing a bunch. So, I’m happy to put my little John August on that.

**Craig:** Well, I always wanted your little John August on something. [laughs]

**John:** [laughs] Indeed. Indeed.

**Craig:** You know who piqued up when you said that, like in the background Sexy Craig just sort of lifted his head up a little bit. Like, hmmm?

**John:** Yeah, there’s Sexy Craig. Sexy Craig, you should keep it down for a little bit, because our first bit of follow up is two episodes ago we talked about the union response to sexual harassment and–

**Craig:** There goes Sexy Craig. He’s just running as fast as he can.

**John:** So I had said that the WGA, among the other unions, is coming out with plans and sort of first steps. One of the things I was referring to, but I didn’t actually have a link to it yet because it was not up on the site yet, is a really good new statement on sexual harassment on the WGA website that talks through this is what sexual harassment is, these are the things the WGA can do to get involved. It really talks through the Friends decision, which I hear people bringing up a lot because the Friends decision, to summarize, was this court case in which they found that a writer’s assistant was not able to sue for sexual harassment for a hostile work environment. This really goes into sort of what that means, but also why we shouldn’t take that Friends decision too broadly. There still can be sexual harassment in writer’s rooms as we have seen a lot this past year.

So, I will point everyone to that. That will be a link in the show notes.

Another thing that happened right at the very end of the year was a commission headed up by Kathleen Kennedy and Anita Hill has started gaining traction. I think we’re going to hear a lot about it in the New Year, which is meant to be industry-wide. So, it’s not just the Writers Guild or Directors Guild or the producers, but really the whole industry talking about what is going to be the response to the spectrum of sexual harassment and sexual assault claims we’ve seen this past year, and how to sort of best proceed. So, we’ll definitely be looking forward to that into 2018.

**Craig:** I think that’s all really good news. I was particularly pleased to see that on the Writers Guild statement they led off with the specific name and phone number of a person for people to call. I think sometimes the first and thus tallest barrier to help is just not knowing who to contact. So we do have an individual and it’s public record here. Her name is Latifah Salom – I’m not sure how you pronounce it – but she is with the Writers Guild of America West Legal Services Department. Obviously she’s not to be called if you’re not a member of the Writers Guild, but if you are and you are experiencing sexual harassment or you’re concerned about a situation in the workplace, that’s who you call. And then she can start to guide you through the process. So that was really great.

And I was also glad to see that the industry as a whole – I mean, listen, the industry is obviously going to do whatever it can to appear to be solving a problem. I will say, though, for anyone who is skeptical or god forbid cynical, sometimes when industries do things to create the appearance of solving a problem they mistakenly solve the problem. Now, I don’t think that this is a problem that can be obviously solved per se, but I do think that there is a real chance that some good codified change can occur as a result here. And when I say change, I mean the way that businesses implement their own policies, the way they handle people’s complaints, and also the way that they treat individuals who have violated the rules and violated other people’s rights.

**John:** Yeah. So, I’m eager to see what’s going to happen. These are very smart people involved in this and so we’ll hope that as we move into 2018 there will be some real clear plans for addressing things that have happened in the past, and making sure those situations don’t keep recurring.

**Craig:** Mm-hmm. Amen.

**John:** Amen. All right, let’s get to our feature marquee topic of this first episode of 2018 which is suspense.

**Craig:** Ooh.

**John:** Ooh, wait for it.

**Craig:** Wait for it.

**John:** So, suspense, actually the word itself is fascinating. So, it’s from a French word “suspendre,” which is pendre, which is to hang, and sus, above. So, to hang above. What a great image that is. It’s like something is dangling above you and you’re waiting for it to fall.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** That is suspense. And that’s mostly what we’re talking about when we talk about suspense as a narrative device. It is that sense of there is something that is going to happen. You see it’s going to happen. And you are waiting for it. And attention builds because of that. I would define it in a very general sense, suspense is any technique that involves prolonged anticipation. There is a thing that is going to happen. You see it. And you are waiting for it to happen.

**Craig:** The waiting.

**John:** Waiting for it. You usually think about suspense in a bad way, like there’s a bomb ticking under the table. But suspense can also be a good thing. If you are waiting for a surprise party, there’s a good suspense, too. So it’s not just thrillers. It’s not just sort of the big action movies that have suspense. It’s a technique that we can use in all of our scripts. And so I thought we’d dig in on that today.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s a great idea. I believe this topic was proposed by somebody on Twitter, so thank you for that. And it’s a very crafty thing, and I like talking about these. You know, a lot of times when we discuss writing, and I think a lot of times when we go through Three Page Challenges we’re looking for truth. We’re looking for verisimilitude. We’re talking about how as writers we can create these moments, these people, their words and their actions that ring true to us.

This is not that.

**John:** No.

**Craig:** In general life does not have suspense at all. This is a very artificial thing. It’s as artificial in my mind as a montage, which simply does not exist in life. And yet we find it incredibly gratifying when we experience it. And because it is this technique, a craft, it’s good for us to talk I think about how the nuts and bolts of it actually work, because it’s one of the few times as writers we get to be mathematicians. And I like that.

**John:** I think it’s also important to focus on this as a writing technique, because so often you see like Hitchcock is a master of suspense, and you think about it as being a director’s tool, and it’s absolutely true that the way a director is choosing to frame shots, to edit a sequence, to build out the world of the film or the TV show, there’s a lot of craft and technique that is a director’s focus in building suspense.

But, none of it would be there unless the writer had planned for that sequence to be suspenseful and really laid out the structure that’s going to create a sequence that is suspenseful. And suspense, I should point out, really is generally a sequence kind of technique. Within a scene maybe there will be some suspense, but generally it’s a course of a couple of scenes together that build a rising sense of suspense. And so that’s going to happen on the page. So, let’s dig into how you might do it.

**Craig:** Great. Well, I guess to start with, I divide suspense roughly into two categories. Suspense of the unknown, and suspense of the known. Because they’re very different kinds of suspense. When I think about suspense of the unknown, I think about information that is being withheld either from the audience or from a character. Do you know what I mean by those distinctions?

**John:** I think I do. So, the unknown is like we are curious. We’re leaning in to see what is going to happen. Or in some cases, we have more information than the character who we’re watching has. So, we know there’s something dangerous in that room, and so we’re yelling at the screen like don’t go in that room.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** But the other broad category you’re leaving out there is suspense of the known. Because of the nature of the genre, because of the nature of the kind of story that you’re setting up, we kind of know where it’s going to go. We just don’t know how we’re going to get there. We don’t know what the actual mechanics are. And that is what has us leaning in, has us curious. It’s a question we want answered. And I think almost all cases of suspense, there is that question that we want to see answered.

**Craig:** Exactly. And I think suspense of the known is far more common and it’s also applicable across every genre – comedy, romance, everything. So, but we tend to think when we hear suspense, at least initially, we think of that Hitchcockian mode which is more of the suspense of the unknown. Or it’s a kind of a whodunit suspense. The key for me when you look inside, OK, for instance there is information that you the writer, and by the way, let me just take a step back for a second. You’re so right in saying that this is something that is important for writers to understand.

We think suspense like we think all technical aspects of cinema, like for instance montage, is from the director. And I argue, as I often do, that that is not true. It’s not that it’s not from them, it’s that it’s from us. The writer must lay out the montage so that it has a purpose, that it has a beginning and an end, that it makes sense for the characters. It’s there for a reason. You don’t just haphazardly decide one day on set, “I think, you know what, let’s have a montage.” It doesn’t work that way.

It is intentional. And it is from the script. Similarly, we must plan our suspense. Otherwise, there’s no opportunity for it. How the director creates it visually, we can even put some clues ourselves into the script. But, yes, certainly directors have an enormous role to play in that. So let’s talk a little bit about that situation where there is information that you the writer have, the director has, but the audience doesn’t have. And also the characters don’t have.

**John:** Absolutely. So, the most classic example of this is the whodunit, where the character is trying to figure out who killed the person who is the villain in this situation. There’s a fundamental thing which you as the writer know and the audience and the lead character does not know. So, in order to build that suspense you’re probably laying out some clues that will help that person get closer. You will have some misdirects. You’ll have some sort of near misses. You are trying to lead the character and the audience on a path that will take them towards it, but a really fascinating path that will take them towards the answer with a lot of frustrations and delays that are ultimately gratifying.

I mean, the best kind of suspense are kind of like beautiful agony. It’s that moment of delayed gratification and so when you finally get there, ah-ha, it’s there. Other cases, you know, the suspense might be you’re trying to get away from that thing and will you get away from that villain. In those situations, you as the audience might have more information about how close the other person is than the character is.

**Craig:** Yeah. There’s also another classic kind of suspense of the unknown is what I’ll call for lack of a better phrase Mystery of Circumstance. For instance, Lost, or I don’t know if you ever saw that old show from the ‘60s, The Prisoner.

**John:** Absolutely.

**Craig:** Which Lost is basically riffing on.

**John:** Yeah. What is the nature of this world? What the hell is going on? And you’re waiting for that.

**Craig:** Exactly. And so now everyone is confused and you’re confused, and you’re confused with them. But they’re making discoveries and episodic television has this wonderful tool of suspense which is show’s over, what will happen next week. That’s the cliffhanger. That is literal – I mean, when you talk about cliffhangers, that is literal suspense. I am suspended over a chasm.

But figuratively these sorts of moments of suspense are happening all the time and all of it is creating this ache to understand because what suspense is playing on is a human fact. And the human fact is that we naturally seek to make sense of and order the world around us. So suspense is playing with that natural desire that every human – babies have it.

So, this is something that’s going right to this primal need that the audience has.

Then on the other hand, we have the other kind of suspense, which I think is more common, and very useful even if it’s not always thought of as suspense, which is suspense of the known.

**John:** So these are situations where because of the nature of the genre, because of the kind of story that you’re telling, we have a sense of where things are going. We just don’t know how. We don’t know what the path is that is going to leave them there. And we are looking for clues that will get us to that conclusion.

I don’t know if you’ve seen Call Me By Your Name yet, but you start watching Call Me By Your Name and you have a good sense of some of the things that are going to happen, but you just have no idea how you’re going to get those things to connect. And that is the thrill of the movie is watching those things happen.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s a bit of a paradox, isn’t it? I mean, you’d think that the point of suspense is not knowing. And yet when we sit down and someone says, “Oh, here’s a movie from 1998. It stars Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Lopez. And they bump into each other on the street. And he’s getting married and she’s the wedding planner for the marriage. And you’re like, “Well, I know how that ends.” And you do.

You know exactly how it ends. In fact, you know roughly how the whole movie is going to go, don’t you? Yes. And yet if you sit down and watch it, you will begin to feel great suspense. And this kind of suspense to me is really anticipation more than suspense. It’s a slightly different feeling. It’s the feeling from the old ketchup commercials. Well the ketchup is going to come out of the bottle. Don’t know when. Don’t know how. Is it going to come out in a big blob? Right?

So, this is like watching somebody continually pulling a slingshot back. You know they’re going to let it go, but when? When? And you start to need it. You start to need it.

So, even though we know inside of these movies, like for instance friend-of-the-podcast Tess Morris’s Man Up. Is she going to get him in time? Is he going to get to her in time? Is she going to believe him? Is he going to believe her? Of course. Of course. But how? And will they? And is it going to go the way that we think?

This all creates this enormous suspense. And all of it really, I think you hit upon it earlier in a beautiful way, is kind of sweetly torturing the audience. That’s the point.

**John:** Yes. And so I will say that even the examples of the rom-coms where we as the audience know, OK, they’re going to eventually connect at the end. We can see what the template basically is that’s going to take us to that place, within those beats there will be moments in which we as the audience have more information than the characters do. And that is part of the joy. Within sequences we might know something about the other guy that she doesn’t know yet, and that is important.

So, or we know that there’s a secret that’s going to come out and we’re wondering when will that secret come out. So it’s not just one kind of suspense. There’s going to be little moments of suspense during the whole time. And even in action sequences, you know, will he get past that part of the cliff before the boulder falls? There’s always going to be little small moments of suspense within the bigger moments of suspense.

**Craig:** Correct. And this kind of suspense fuels genres that we don’t necessarily think of as suspenseful, but definitely are, and in fact require suspense. For instance, comedies of error. A comedy of errors is entirely based on suspense. Someone overhears something, misinterprets it, and then what ensues is a comedy that really is about us going, “Oh my god, would you just ask him the right question? Would you just say what you want to say and then it will all…do it, do it, do it.” And then they finally do it. Every episode of Three’s Company was a suspenseful episode in its own way.

**John:** Absolutely. So let’s take a look at some of the techniques a writer uses in order build suspense both on a scene or a sequence level, but also on a more macro level for the entire course of the story. The thing I think we’re talking about sort of fundamentally is delay. And in most of these cases the ball could drop immediately. The bomb under the table could just go off. But suspense is the ticking. Suspense is delaying the bomb going off, or having some other obstacle get in the way that is keeping the thing from happening, which you know is going to have to happen next.

So, those two characters finally meeting. The explosion finally happening. The asteroid blowing up. There’s going to be something that has to happen and you’re delaying that and you’re finding good reasons to delay that that are reasonable for the course of the story that you’re telling, but also provide a jolt of energy for the narrative and for the audience.

**Craig:** That’s right. And in order to create delay, we have to do things purposefully. We have to use our story and find circumstances to frustrate the characters. And we have to use our craft to obstruct. And there are different ways of doing this. The most common way and perhaps the easiest way, but oftentimes the least satisfying way, is coincidence. Coincidence is used all the time to frustrate and obstruct people. Instead of walking into the room and seeing somebody do something, they do it, walk out just as you’re walking in, and you just miss seeing them do it. And the audience goes, “Oooh.” Well, that’s coincidence.

There’s a classic axiom, “You’re allowed to use coincidence to get your characters into trouble or make things harder for them. You’re not allowed to use it to make things easier for them.” And that’s true. But, when we’re creating suspense and we’re trying to delay things, the less you can use coincidence the better. Because no matter how you employ coincidence, the audience will always subconsciously understand you moved pieces on the chessboard in order to achieve an effect. It didn’t happen sort of naturally, or for reasons that were human or understandable. And therefore we’re just a little less excited by the outcome.

**John:** Absolutely. If we’re talking about two events, if it’s A and then B, if A causes B we’re generally going to be happier. If we can see that there is a causal relationship between those two things, we’re going to be happier. But coincidence, I agree, can be really, really helpful. And the coincidences that get in the way of your character achieving the thing he wants, that’s great. And it’s always nice when the bad guy catches a lucky break, because that’s just great. And so we’re used to having our hero suddenly have this big stroke of luck. So having the hero not get that stroke, or having the villain who you despise just really be lucky, or start to tumble but then save himself, that’s great. It’s surprising. And so it’s not what we expect. It’s going to be a helpful kind of way to keep that suspense going. To keep the sequence running along.

**Craig:** Yeah. And if you can subvert your coincidences, all the better. For instance, there’s a famous and wonderful moment in Die Hard where our hero coincidentally catches the bad guy. He just catches him. He doesn’t know he’s the bad guy, but he catches him. And we’re like, oh my god, the coincidence of that just made life so much easier for our hero. And then the bad guy pretends, in a way that is very surprising and shocking to us, to not be the bad guy at all, but to be a hostage. And our hero believes him. And now a terrible suspense is created because now we don’t know what will happen. We know he’s going to use – the bad guy is going to use this to his benefit. And we know that our hero is now in terrible danger. We know it. The hero doesn’t know it. Oh, suspense of the unknown. Wonderful.

So in that case, you’re actually taking coincidence and using it in your favor in a way that isn’t even coincidental. So I love that sort of thing.

**John:** Over the course of Die Hard, which is a suspenseful movie from the core, you have this moment of intense micro suspense. Because we know at some point the gig is going to be up and Bruce Willis is going to recognize what’s really going on. But will it be in time?

There can even be moments within just really small second by second suspense, does he still have a bullet left in his gun?

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** That is a question. A question that you don’t know, he doesn’t know. What is the choice going to be? And as long as you can sort of juggle all of those things, you are going to make a much tighter, stronger sequence.

**Craig:** As a writer you are looking for opportunities. You are looking for targets in which to create suspense. All the time, in every genre, again every single genre, don’t think of suspense only as when will the bomb go off or who shot Mrs. McGillicuddy. And when you find those opportunities, it’s really important for you to use them. Exploit them. Because they’re little gifts.

When you have a moment of suspense, for instance, the hero doesn’t know that he’s even caught the villain. He thinks the villain is a victim. Wonderful. Use it. And inside of that, now you have free rein to just torture the audience. Do not be afraid to torture the audience. Be afraid of not torturing them. This is where you want to tease them. You want to tantalize them. You want to almost have the hero figure it out and then take it away from the hero. You want to drive them crazy. This is sort of the closest thing writers have to sexual interaction with an audience. Sorry Sexy Craig. I’m going to be unsexy about this.

But it is a bizarre flirtatious sweet kind of torture. All of which is designed to delay release. It is a bit like saying I’m going to give you an itch and I am not going to scratch it. I almost scratched it. Almost did. Oh, you thought I scratched it but I didn’t. Until you finally do it. And in this way something that is as expected an outcome as “itch is scratched” becomes remarkably satisfying. It is a release. And in that sense it is a catharsis.

**John:** It is a catharsis. And so I think it’s also important to keep in mind we talk about the victory lap, and we talk about sort of the success at the end of that. When you finally do let that person have their success, make sure you give them enough of a scene to celebrate that success. Because there’s nothing more frustrating to me when I see a movie where a character finally does it and then it immediately cuts away to the next thing. Let them actually enjoy it for a moment, because we as the audience need that moment of release as well. We need that moment of celebration, like OK, we finally got to that thing.

You know, throughout this whole sequence, maybe we’ve seen that door in the distance, or we’re running into it and we get there and it just shuts. And the thing we’ve been going to that whole time is no longer an option. Aliens is a movie of tremendous success, where there’s always a plan, and the plan is always getting frustrated. And it finally gives us those moments at the very, very end where like, OK, we’re safe, everything is down, and we can sort of go off “safely into the distance.”

So, make sure that in those teases and all the misdirects, the red herrings, everything you’re doing to set that up, make sure that by the time you get them through that sequence you do get that moment of release.

**Craig:** And to guide you on this journey, dear writer, is your best tool – your empathy with the audience. Suspense really needs to be a function of your empathy with an audience. You already know the movie. You’ve seen it. You know everything. Now put yourself in their shoes. Do it over and over and over. Weirdly they’re the most important character in your movie, even though they’re not in the movie. You’re thinking about them all the time. And it is especially important to think about the audience when we are talking about these – let’s call them artifices. Because that’s what these kinds of craft works are.

If you do, then you’ll know, OK, in the moment where you finally do the reveal and you release the tension and the ketchup comes out of the bottle, well again, put yourself in their shoes and ask what do I want here? And, of course, what you want to do is just wallow in the joy of it. Just let them wallow.

**John:** So let’s wrap this up by talking about what does this actually look like on the page. Because we say like, OK, obviously film and TV directors are responsible for a lot of the visuals we’re seeing on screen, but the choice of what we’re overall going to be seeing there is the writer’s choice. And so let’s look at what those techniques look like on the page, because so much of successful suspense really is the scene description. Like those are the words that are going to give you the feeling of what it’s going to feel like when you see it visually.

And so it’s cross-cutting. We’re with this character, and then we cross-cut to the other person who is getting close. It’s finding honestly the adverbs and the short-clipped sentences that gives us a sense of like how close they are to each other. Or like he’s almost at the door. But then, no, it slams shut.

These are the cases where you may want to break out that sort of heavy artillery of the underlines, the boldfaced words, the exclamation points. Maybe even double exclamation points when it really is a stopper. So that we as the reader get a real sense of what it’s going to feel like to be the audience in the seat watching that up on the screen.

And that’s also why I’m so conservative with using those big guns when I don’t need them in action and writing. Because when you really do need them they need to be fresh. You can’t – you got to have some dry powder for when you really need to sell those big moments. Like, hey, pay attention to this thing because this is what it’s going to feel like.

**Craig:** 100%. And I also think the great weapon in our arsenal when we are creating suspense on the page, and you’re absolutely right, it has to be done with action, well, if suspense is delay, and suspense is waiting, delay and waiting for us in terms of text and page is white space.

**John:** Yep.

**Craig:** When I am about to – when I want people to feel as if it’s an agonizing wait, I use a lot of white space. Burn it up. Because that’s what it tells you.

Sometimes I’ll do three, four, five things in a row. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Boom. It’s amazing how cinematic that can be when 99% of the script is just line, line, line, line, line, you know, double space, line, line, line, line.

So white space becomes essentially your timeline. It’s your way of expanding that moment to agony and it’s not something that you can get away with more than I think once in a script. And you may not need to do it at all. But if you do have that moment where it’s the big reveal, burn up some space. And let people feel it on the page.

**John:** 100% agree. All right, so that is a look at suspense. Thank you whatever Twitter writer wrote in and said, “Hey, let’s talk about suspense,” because that’s a good topic. Thank you.

**Craig:** Indeed.

**John:** Indeed.

**Craig:** Oh, you know what? It wasn’t a Twitter. I know who it was.

**John:** Tell me.

**Craig:** It was Katie Dippold.

**John:** Oh, Katie Dippold is the best.

**Craig:** Yeah, it was Katie Dippold. It wasn’t some random Twitter person. Katie Dippold, great screenwriter, has been on our podcast before. Wrote The Heat and wrote Ghostbusters and many other things.

**John:** Katie Dippold, you’re the best.

**Craig:** She is.

**John:** You’re my favorite writer of 2018 as we’re recording this podcast.

**Craig:** Is she your favorite writer from Freehold, New Jersey?

**John:** I’m going to say yes. I’m going to boldly say yes, unless that’s you. You’re also from Freehold?

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Well, she’s my favorite female writer from Freehold, New Jersey.

**Craig:** Fair enough. I’ll take it.

**John:** All right. Let’s go to a question from St. Paul. Deborah writes, “Almost four years ago I registered a short screenplay with the WGA. I recently finished a full length version of the same script. I tried hard to think of a different title for the longer script, but the title I used for the short version fits it best. I was just about to register the longer script with the WGA when I realized I probably can’t register two scripts with the same title, or can I? The registration of the short version expires this coming April. I could wait to register the longer version until then, but I’d like to get the full length version sent out to competitions now.

“To complicate matters, the short script placed well in a few competitions, and that might cause confusion. Is it simply a bad idea to have two versions of a script with the same title?”

So, I left this question whole because there’s so much to sort of pick apart here that I thought we’d just talk through all of it.

**Craig:** Yeah, well, I mean, they’re all understandable questions, Deborah, but they all stem from some false premises. So let us go into those false premises. First of all, the title is not an issue. Believe it or not, other people are also writing scripts with the same title you’re using. I mean, unless it’s a truly bizarre title. But, you know, let’s just come up with a random title here. Early Dawn. That’s the title. I’m going to write a script called Early Dawn.

There’s 400 other Early Dawns registered. Doesn’t matter. None of that matters. The process of title claiming comes down to the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America. All the studios register with their title database and it really is just a trade organization in which the big companies have agreed to not step on each other’s titles. It is a not a question of copyright. I don’t even think you can copyright a title.

**John:** You can’t. You can trademark things in very limited circumstances.

**Craig:** So trademarking really is about saying this has a recognizable value in a marketplace. But as a title, you know, I read a great book. Scott Frank said, hey, you should read this book. It’s called The Power of the Dog. But this one, not this one. There are two different Powers of the Dog. And both of those novels take their title from a Rudyard Kipling poem called “The Power of the Dog.” So, yeah, that’s not an issue whatsoever. Nor do I think it’s going to be an issue that a competition is going to be confused. I don’t think they really work that way. There’s millions of things coming in and out. Again, I assume they’ve dealt with multiple titles within one round of submissions. They’re just going by date and name. Title, date, name. That’s enough of a fingerprint. I don’t think it’s a problem to have two versions of a script with the same title at all, personally. I think you’re just trying to get your stuff read at this point.

And, lastly, and most importantly, I don’t really think registering with the WGA makes any sense at all.

**John:** I agree with you. And as a WGA board member, the WGA registration process frustrates me greatly. And I don’t have the energy to go after it as a larger thing, but it is essentially a service that you send in your script, they seal it in an envelope and they put it on a shelf. And it can prove that you actually had turned something in at that date. But it does not really mean anything beyond that point.

So, copyright is a real protection. WGA registration is not the same as copyright. You automatically have copyright when you write stuff. Don’t worry about WGA registration at all, Deborah. It is not meaningful at all.

I will say in terms of short scripts and longer scripts that have the same title, having worked for many years at the Sundance Film Institute, so many of those projects started as short films that were shot and now they’re longer films. They have the same title. It doesn’t matter. And so if you have the right title, use the right title. And really I would say to everybody, if you have a great title, use that title, unless it’s like also Star Wars. Don’t title your thing Star Wars.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** But beyond that, like if you have a great title, celebrate your great title. Use your great title. Do not worry about whether you’ve used it before. It just does not matter.

**Craig:** Correct. And for those of you who are concerned about copyright and protection, I understand. I’m not, but if you are, much, much better idea to register with the United States Copyright Office. You can do it online. It’s a little bit more expensive than the Writers Guild, but on the other hand it actually does provide legal protection in certain cases, or at least legal options that the Writers Guild does not and cannot. Because only the US Copyright Office can do that. So, check that out.

We have a question from Winston in Los Angeles. He says, “I’m a 28-year-old aspiring TV writer living in LA and I’ve been experiencing writer’s block for the past few months.” Oh-oh, all right, hang on, Winston. We’ll help.

“Though I’ve yet to staff on a show or sell a pilot, I’ve been signed to a reputable agent for the better part of a year and I’ve written several pilots that have gotten me a handful of meetings with executives. However, my material has yet to find a home and it seems that some of the main reasons why is because it’s either too culturally specific, racially, or would be too expensive to make. Period pieces.

“I’ve now gotten to a point where I either don’t know what to write, or I’m too scared to write what I want to write for fear that I will produce something that my agent will not like, or not think is viable. This has given me a tremendous amount of anxiety and I feel both paralyzed by fear and creatively lost. Is there any advice you can give me on how to recover?”

Oof. John, we got to help this guy.

**John:** Winston, we’ve all been there. So, here’s what I’ll say about where I think your situation is in general and some advice about what you should be writing next. It sounds like you want to staff on a TV show. It sounds like you are a person who is writing these pilots with the hope that people will read these pilots and say, “This is a good writer. I will hire them on my TV show to be a staff writer on my TV show.” I take that as your general plan and goal, and I think that’s a good plan and a good goal.

So, you say that you’re worried your stuff is too culturally specific racially, or too expensive to make, I don’t think that really matters that much based on the kinds of things you’re trying to do. You are writing these really basically samples to show. This is how well I can write. I am a writer you should meet with and therefore staff me on your TV show.

Yes, it would be fantastic if someone were to read your pilot and say, “You know what? This is so good. We want to make this. We want to find another producer to partner you up with and make that.” But that doesn’t seem like the first priority. The priority should be how does Winston get staffed. And I think the next step for Winston getting staffed is to write something else that is just great and groundbreaking that really shows who you are as a writer and what you would be able to bring into the room if they were to hire you to work on their show.

So, I don’t know if you are a candidate who would be great for making the room more diverse. Based on what you said, it sounds like maybe you are the writer who they could be looking to to bring a different voice. So write something that is that different voice and write the thing we say so much on the show, but write the thing you wish existed in the world. That TV show that, wow, you would watch every episode the minute it launched because that is the show that you want to see on the air. That’s the thing that’s going to get you excited to write again. It’s probably going to be the thing that gets them excited to staff you on a TV show.

**Craig:** Yeah, Winston, I really, really feel for you here because you are experiencing a feeling that I agree with John every writer has felt, and yet I think you’re probably experiencing it in a far more complicated and pernicious way because of the circumstances involved.

I have a gay friend who is a writer and he’s written some things that were gay themed. Some movies that were gay themed. And at some point he sort of ran into the, you know, we don’t want to do these and maybe don’t do another gay themed thing. And what starts to happen is you start to think, wait, A, why, and B, I write what I write, and C, what if in six months people just sort of wake up and say, yeah, we want to make those kinds of movies and that’s weird. Am I now succumbing to some sort of internalized homophobia? Are they right? Is this all I can write? Can I not write non-gay themed?

And you begin to drown in your self-doubt and your questions because what’s happening is, as you put it, you are beginning to doubt your own basic instincts. That is a terrible feeling. Anyone, Winston, would immediately begin to feel terrible anxiety and fear, and of course, you’re paralyzed. And of course you’re creatively lost. So let’s start there.

Your writer’s block makes total sense. You are responding to this the way every human pretty much would and should. So, the good news is therefore there is a pathway out here. And I think the first thing to do is look at the work you’ve done so far and give yourself permission and thanks for having written it, whether other people want to make it or not.

The making of it, not important. And the did they hire me for it or not, not important. Don’t question the value of what you’ve done to this point. Don’t question the instincts that led you to it. They were perfect and wonderful. They’re you. OK?

That doesn’t ever equate to “and now you will become rich.” That’s not the way the world works. But you did what you wanted to do the best you could do it. Great. So stop there first of all and thank yourself for that. Now, ask yourself going forward, “Is there something else that I’m interested in doing, honestly, just as honestly as I did those things, that would show another avenue for me, not to please the masters of Hollywood, but rather to get me work, so that I can show them all the other things I can do?” And if there is, as John said, pursue that. If there isn’t, that’s OK, too. Then you write what you write. The world is full of people who do a certain thing. And a lot of people have told them we don’t want it, until they do.

So, you kind of – I guess what I’m saying is, Winston, you’ve got to be you. You have no other choice. The anxiety and the fear you’re feeling right now isn’t really writer’s block. It’s a disconnection from yourself. You just don’t know if you can be the person they want you to be and I’m here to tell you you can’t. You can only be who you can be. So the only question to ask yourself Winston is, “Is there more to me than this?” And if there isn’t, that’s OK. And if there is, go for it.

**John:** Yeah. A general thing I would talk about in terms of the writer’s block that you’re feeling, I follow a lot of artists on Instagram. And some of the artists were people who have helped me out on One Hit Kill, this game I did a couple years ago. They’re really great artists and what I find so fascinating is I’ll watch them practice. Basically every day they sit down and they just do some work. And they try sketching some different things. They’re not only doing the work that they’re being paid to do, they’re doing the work that lets them develop themselves and the things that are interesting to them. And that may be what Winston needs to do as we come into the start of 2018 is to write some different stuff, to write some little sketchy kind of things. Just sit down and get back into the joy of actually writing for a bit. And not be so stressed out about writing that next thing that’s going to get him to the next step.

Write something that you actually just enjoy writing. And you don’t even have to finish it. Just get back into what it is that you like about writing. And that may be the thing that helps you discover what Craig is saying is what is that other thing that I could do that I just haven’t done yet.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s scary. Right? I mean, I think sometimes we – I think Dennis Palumbo talked about this on our famous Episode 99 that a lot of times writer’s block is a thing we experience as this latency period before we up our game. And it may be that there’s a comfort level to writing the things you feel you can write. OK, well, I wrote these things. They got me an agent. I will now cling to those like a little life preserver in this scary ocean of Hollywood because that’s what worked so far.

But at some point what’s worked so far isn’t really going to get you where you need to go. All that’s going to do is, well, what it has done for you so far. There may be some scary creative move to make. And it may require you to take a couple steps back in your self-confidence. OK, well I’m not a master of this genre. I’m going to be scared for a little bit. But here’s the beautiful part of writing: no one will see it until you want them to. So, be bold. Be bold.

**John:** The one last bit of advice I’ll give to Winston is you had some meetings with people, with producers, or other folks who were not your agent. How did those go? And did you feel good about them? Are there things you think you could do better? Because that might be a skill you need to practice on, too. How do you present yourself in the room? Because it’s entirely possible that the stuff you wrote was great, but just for whatever reason it wasn’t connecting between what they read and who they saw in that room. And if you can make that connection work better, maybe you’ll get staffed on the next thing.

**Craig:** Yeah. That’s great.

**John:** Last question comes from John in Jackson, Wyoming. He says, “I was looking at the script for Mother! in Weekend Read and downloaded Noah and noticed Darren Aronofsky does not seem to use traditional sluglines. I like it. It flows better as I read. But is that something only he gets away with?”

**Craig:** Yes, other people have tried and they were summarily executed.

**John:** Yeah, he’s the last one.

**Craig:** Yeah, the Writers Guild does every Friday, everybody shows up. We gather at Third and Fairfax and begin shooting writers in the head for not using sluglines. [laughs] It’s bloody, but we all feel better when it’s over because, of course, the orthodoxy must be enforced. Unless you’re Darren Aronofsky, and then no.

**John:** Yeah. So only he can get away with that. So, technique you’re describing is – if you actually keep reading a bunch of scripts you’ll see that it’s not that uncommon. I would say maybe one out of 100 screenwriters is doing something kind of like that where it’s just kind of a flow of text and there will be things that sort of look slugline-ish, but aren’t really scene headers. And it just basically works.

I’m sure we’ve talked about this on a previous episode, but at some point Darren Aronofsky’s line producer and First AD is going through and adding scene numbers to what that stuff is because fundamentally they are scenes, but it just reads like one continuous flow across the page. It’s fine.

**Craig:** Yeah, it’s totally fine. If you are someone who is going through some scripts and you pick one up, first of all context matters. So, let’s say I’m a judge in the Austin Screenwriting Competition. So that’s open to anybody who pays the fee. I pick up a script, I open it up, there are no sluglines. Because of the context, in my mind I start thinking, oh, this person has never seen a screenplay before.

And that can be an issue. Of course, if page one is brilliant, not so much. If I get a script and it’s got a cover from WME, all right, well, this person is represented. I open it up. There are no sluglines. Oh, look at who’s fancy.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s what I’ll think. That’s the context. Oh, look at fancy you.

But either way, if page one is good, and page two is good, and page three is good, the rest of it is forgotten because what happens – no matter what you do is you begin to watch the movie in your head. And unless something has changed dramatically in the past day or so, I have never seen INT. HOUSE. DAY flash on the screen of a movie. So, no, no problems here. Everybody – and I’ll also say, John, from Jackson, Wyoming, if you love writing that way, if you find it easier and more pleasurable and you feel more creative, oh for god’s sake, do it.

**John:** I say do it. The first time I ever read a script that was written that way was Terry Hayes wrote a script for Planet of the Apes. So, Oliver Stone was going to do Planet of the Apes. And I was working for the producers who were going to do it with him. And so Terry Hayes sent in the script and it did not have slug lines. And I was like, whoa, this is crazy. But really three or four pages in you just totally roll with it and it was great.

I should say that script was nuts. And the Oliver Stone Planet of the Apes movie would have been just nuts. And I sort of kind of wished I lived in a timeline where he actually made that move because, wow, it was a hell of a movie.

**Craig:** The Oliver Stone movie of Blank is just nuts. I think Scott Silver has some kind of funky alternative version of this sort of thing, too.

**John:** Oh yeah. I’ve seen his scripts, too.

**Craig:** Listen, this is not super uncommon. And, yeah, you know, sometimes, like I said, when you do see a script from a somewhat established writer you may think initially, oh, how precious. You need to be a poet as you write your screenplay. But, you know, again, to be completely forgiving about it, it really does come down to is this a good movie or not.

**John:** There was a Gus Van Sant script I read 20 years ago that was – it had different fonts. And like for different scenes it would have different fonts that were sort of meant to capture the style. Yeah, I get that as an experiment, but that was just a step too far for me. You’re not going to be able to film the font. It’s not going to really work for you. So, I’m happy to stay in my 12-point Courier Prime and not try different fonts for it.

**Craig:** Yeah, again, you know, maybe Gus thought, well, it’s going to be easier for me to write it this way. And so that’s fine. It’s essentially they’re all little crutches that we use to make it through the miserable day of writing. But I’m with you, I’m a pretty simple guy. I don’t really think of formatting as helping me do anything. And therefore I don’t think of it as hurting me in any way. It just is. So I just default to the usual. But then again, look, there are things that as we know these absurd charlatans say like don’t say “we see” and blah. I’ll do whatever I want.

**John:** I will point out that the INT/EXT, it feels so weird when you first start reading scripts, and then it becomes like he said/she said when you’re reading prose fiction, where like you stop reading those. And so the fact that Aronofsky and some other writers just don’t use them at all, I think part of that is because no one sees EXT/INT anymore anyway. So, maybe they’re just making choices that we will actually read those words that we would otherwise skip past.

**Craig:** Well, that’s right. They’re deleting the things that we tend to skim, right? They’re just removing the skim barriers. So, yeah, I have no problem with it. Be free, you wonderful people. Be free.

**John:** Be free. I will say John was talking about Weekend Read, and Megan, our producer, she’s also the person who puts up all those For Your Consideration scripts into Weekend Read. And she’s been working her ass off getting those up there. So there’s at least 20, maybe 30 scripts from this year’s Oscar bait movies that are there. So, if you are on iOS, download Weekend Read. It’s free in the app store and you can download all those scripts that the studios have sent out for your consideration. And they are free to put in Weekend Read.

**Craig:** You people with your apps.

**John:** With all our apps. It’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is an app as well. It is called Flipflop Solitaire. It is by Zach Gage. He’s the guy who also did Really Bad Chess, which was a great game. The Solitaire game is super addictive and I’ve been playing it a lot because it works on planes. There’s no Internet connection required. It’s just a delightful version of Solitaire where you’re allowed to build up and down simultaneously.

**Craig:** Ooh.

**John:** And he does really ingenious things with using the haptic feedback on the phone, so as you move parts around you get that nice little clicky feeling. It is designed to maximize your obsession and addiction. Really, really well done. So, it’s a free download. Just try it. It’s really a great little game.

**Craig:** And downloaded.

**John:** Fantastic.

**Craig:** Wonderful. Excellent. Another thing to waste time on.

OK, you sitting down everyone? I hope you are. Because my One Cool Thing is a podcast.

**John:** Craig?

**Craig:** I mean, wow. [laughs]

**John:** I know how this all started, so I know why you’re listening to this podcast.

**Craig:** It’s not, look, yeah, it’s not like I went, you know what, it’s time to listen to podcasts now. Let’s do some research and see, oh, my favorite podcast. No, of course not.

No, what happened was John and I are friendly with Julia Turner, who is the editor-in-chief of Slate, and she happened to mention to us that they have this new podcast called Slow Burn. And for the life of me it sounded interesting and I was like, oh, OK. I’ll listen to one episode. Well, it’s wonderful. And so far I think there are only four episodes out.

Let me tell you from my non-podcast listening point of view why I loved it. So, I assume most of you don’t listen to podcasts, even though you’re listening to this one.

**John:** Yeah, you’re only reading the transcripts of this show.

**Craig:** Yeah, like I don’t really think any of you actually listen to podcasts, but the episodes are about 25 minutes, which is perfect. You just do it in a short drive. So the host, and I assume the author of all of it, is a fellow named Leon Neyfakh, and what Slow Burn is about is Watergate. Oh god, no. Well, here’s the thing, it’s not the Watergate story that we all know that has been told by All the President’s Men, or currently now The Post.

The way he comes at it is a kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern angle where he picks out these individuals that have sort of been lost to time and they’ve been removed from the general narrative of things, but who are actually very important and very critical inside of the story of how Watergate came to be. And he talks about who they were and what happened with them. And it is fascinating because you start to see, well, honestly how nothing has changed. And it’s remarkable.

And very well done. So, if you do want to listen a podcast, and I don’t know why, maybe check out Slow Burn with Leon Neyfakh.

**John:** Yeah. I think it’s terrific as well. And what is so interesting about the choice they’re making on how they’re telling the story is it’s really like what it looked like up close while you were in that time period. Because we have the benefit of looking back decades to see like, “Oh, this is the overall broad shape of the story.” But while they were in the middle of it, they didn’t know where it was going. And so they were all just like what’s happening. And it feels very much like where we’re at right now in modern society. What is happening? This is crazy. And so the parallels are really natural. And they don’t overdraw them, but like you can’t help but see like, “Oh, this is the press trying to cover this situation. This is the crazy person who is out trying to defend the president in these situations.”

So, it’s really, really well done. Good interviews. A very good mix between the scripted portions and the tape. Just really well done. I also recommend Slow Burn.

If you are a Slate Plus member like I am, there are also bonus episodes that sort of go deeper into some of the interviews which have been great, too.

**Craig:** Yeah, weirdly I’m not a Slate Plus member.

**John:** No, because you listen to one podcast.

**Craig:** Yeah. Pretty much.

**John:** If you were a Slate Plus member, you’d be able to listen to our friend Julia Turner on Slate Culture Gabfest every week, which is phenomenal, and you get the Slate Plus bonus segments. So, I highly recommend paying for media so that media can continue to do the great work that they’re doing.

**Craig:** Yeah, I’m sure you do. I’m sure you do want people to pay.

**John:** I want people to pay. You will pay.

That is our show. Our show is produced by Megan McDonnell and is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week comes from Travis Newton. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugst.com. That’s also the place where you send questions like the ones we answered today. If you have ideas for topics we should talk about, also write in there for that, or hit us up on Twitter. I’m @johnaugust. Craig is @clmazin.

We’re on Facebook. Search for Scriptnotes Podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, leave us a review, because that helps other people find the show.

The show notes for this episode and all episodes are at johnaugust.com. That’s where you’ll find a link to the WGA policy on sexual harassment and other stuff we talked about today. Transcripts go up within the week, so if you are a person who would rather read Craig Mazin than listen to him, or my horrible nasal sound, I apologize for everybody, that is the place where you can do that. I hope to be back next week with my nose completely drained and clear and be able to talk like a functional being.

**Craig:** Eww.

**John:** Eww.

**Craig:** Eww.

**John:** Also, all the back episodes, including Episode 99 that we referred to today, those are at Scriptnotes.net, or you can buy the USB drive that has the first 300 episodes of the show. 300 episodes.

**Craig:** Unreal.

**John:** At store.johnaugust.com.

**Craig:** What are we going to do when we get to Episode 500? What do you think?

**John:** I mean, who knows what the technology will be then. There will be some sort of holographic disc thing.

**Craig:** Oh, that’s a good idea.

**John:** But let’s plan this now. So we had a big party for our 100th episode. I think our 500th episode deserves a big blowout party.

**Craig:** Huge party. Like a huge party.

**John:** Huge party. So if you have a place that could host a huge party that would be great.

**Craig:** Yeah, for 500. Beautiful.

**John:** For 500. All right, thanks.

**Craig:** Thanks John.

**John:** Have a great week.

**Craig:** You too.

**John:** Bye.

Links:

* [The WGA’s page](http://www.wga.org/members/workplace-matters/sexual-harassment) regarding sexual harassment
* [The Wedding Planner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedding_Planner), [Die Hard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard), [Three’s Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three%27s_Company), [Man Up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Up_(film)), and the [old ketchup commercials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLoyg3JKRQ) are great examples of suspense
* Thanks to [Katie Dippold](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1767754/), who pitched the idea for this episode
* [Weekend Read](https://quoteunquoteapps.com/weekendread/) has many of this season’s awards scripts posted for your reading pleasure
* [Flipflop Solitaire](http://www.flipflopsolitaire.com) by Zach Gage, who also made [Really Bad Chess](http://www.reallybadchess.com)
* Slate’s podcast, [Slow Burn](http://www.slate.com/articles/slate_plus/watergate.html)
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Travis Newton ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_332.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2017/logic-and-gimmickry).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** Oh yeah. My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 309 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the podcast, we will be standing at the whiteboard to look at how story logic in our scripts may function. And then we’ll sit down to tackle some scenes and look at a few tricks to keep them interesting. And if we have time we may even answer a few more listener questions.

**Craig:** I love those.

**John:** Sound good Craig?

**Craig:** Yeah. I think everything you just said sounded fantastic. No notes, John. No notes.

**John:** No notes. Fantastic. I love those. Before we even get started, yesterday as we were recording this the Emmy nominations came out. And I want to rant just for like maybe two minutes about Emmy nominations.

**Craig:** Go.

**John:** Not about any person who was nominated or not nominated, but the whole idea of snubs. I am so frustrated with the concept of snubs, that people who did not get nominations should feel especially bad or weird. That we need to single out the shows that did not get nominated. I find it incredibly frustrating. And I don’t know, how do you feel about that, Craig? You don’t care about awards at all, do you?

**Craig:** Well, I don’t, but you are touching a certain nerve here. And that’s — it’s not enough to say here are a bunch of people that have put their hearts and souls into making things. And when I say a bunch of people, I mean everybody that made something that year. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to pit them all together, make them compete, pick five of the best ones, then make them compete on television. And then one of them wins. It’s not enough for that. Apparently, also then you have to talk about who you said — no — you don’t get it. I’m snubbing you. No.

And now obviously no one is really actively snubbing anyone, but it’s just the media. Yuck.

**John:** Yes. So the problem I have with snubbing is like snubbing implies intention. That you deliberately did not invite someone to the party. A conscious choice was made. But, of course, a group of people all voting independently cannot make a conscious choice as one body. They can simply choose certain shows, but they cannot deliberately exclude somebody.

And so when I see intention applied to any group of voters, I find it incredibly frustrating because all people have is their own individual things. So the whole idea of snubs just drives me just really bonkers. If you’re going to make a list of other great shows that didn’t get nominations, I guess that’s fine. Because if you’re trying to single out that The Leftovers is a brilliant show, fantastic. But if you want to make us feel about The Leftovers, or feel like The Leftovers was less good because it didn’t get on that list, I’m angry with you.

**Craig:** Yeah. I agree. And I think this is really just a manufactured story to sell clicks. That’s all. I mean, the whole thing, look, award shows of course exist to sell advertising. They don’t exist to actually award people. I mean, if you wanted to award people you would just do it I suppose. But primarily this is a business and they’re selling ads and they’re making money off of a show.

The secondary predatory business of making money selling ads off of things that talk about the thing that makes money from selling ads, that’s the industry that creates the snub. And people click, oh, because you know, ooh, someone in Hollywood got a snub. First of all, snub is a great word. Love that word. Just the sound of it is lovely. Snub.

**John:** It is nice.

**Craig:** Snub.

**John:** So that’s my bit of frustration. Let’s get to our actual real show. Some follow up. Our live show is coming up super, super soon and we have another guest to announce. Liz Meriwether. She is the creator and showrunner of New Girl on Fox which is entering its final season. She will be joining me, and Craig, and Megan Amram on July 25 in Hollywood. There are still some tickets left as we’re recording this. I don’t know. I need to check in with the Writers Guild Foundation to see how many are left. But if you would like to come join us, you should come join us in Hollywood for that special night.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So July 25, 8pm. Come there and see us. Talk with these two incredibly talented writers about sort of whatever. We don’t have an agenda yet.

**Craig:** No, but I will say that Liz is fantastic. Obviously I’ve already talked about Megan, my cousin. But Liz is great. You shouldn’t miss this, honestly. This is great. And it doesn’t matter if you write features or you write television. These are just two very smart people who are going to have I think tremendous insight on what’s going on. You know, I like the fact that we’re getting younger guests, also. You know, not that there’s anything wrong with bring Larry Kasdan on every now and again, but younger writers, they’re plugged in. They know what’s up.

**John:** Well, I mean, Liz Meriwether is younger than we are, but she’s also been running an incredibly popular TV show on Fox for five season now, six seasons now. So, she knows more than we do about things. And that’s my favorite kind of guest is someone who knows much more about something than I do.

**Craig:** 100%. Otherwise it’s just the two of us sitting in judgment.

**John:** Yeah. But that’s also good. But it’s not as exciting.

**Craig:** I kind of like those. Actually, those are my favorite episodes. [laughs] Yeah. I like those.

**John:** All right, so our first main topic today is about story logic. And this came up this week because so I just got back from Paris. I’ve been super jet-lagged. I’m over most of my jetlag. But this past week I went to a book signing for my friend. Julie Buxbaum has a new book out. It just came this last week, called What to Say Next. And she did a reading at the Grove, at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove. And it was my first time going to one of those events. It was cool to see how that all works.

And I was talking with another author there who was describing her new book and it’s a middle grade title. And she was wrestling with the mystery, she said. And she was talking about sort of the story logic. And we’ve been focused so much on character and motivation and other things in recent episodes, I thought we might step back a little bit and talk about the things that actually are just kind of plot. It’s the way in which pieces of information get out there and sort of how the overall shape of the plot and story work, which is sort of not always exactly driven by what the characters are doing. It’s sort of decisions that the author is making way ahead of time.

And that can be just puzzle work. It can actually a very different kind of process than sort of the writing on the page. So, today I want to talk a little bit about the mechanics and specifically one thing that I find incredibly frustrating and I think if we can focus on it you can often solve a lot of your story problems this way. Which is the difference between coincidence, correlation, and causation. The three Cs. And how you can use them to your best benefit in your stories.

**Craig:** Well this is going to be good. I mean, I will take a little something you said there and expand on it slightly. When you say it requires a slightly different way of thinking, I think it requires a completely different way of thinking. I mean, there’s this creative work that we do that’s rooted in a certain empathy. We create a human being in our minds. We must empathize with them, walk in their shoes, see the world through their eyes. Imagine how they react to the things that we throw at them.

It’s very emotional and it’s very empathetic. A lot of times we think of that as the creative meat of what we do. But then there is this other stuff that’s math. Story logic and the creation of the hardware of a plot is math. And it is a puzzle and it is a different part of your brain. I think it’s one of the reasons why so many people want to do what we do and yet so few ultimately get there. Because you can’t just be good at one of these things. You have to be good at all of them. And if you can’t quite get your hand around how to machine a plot, you end with a mess. And it is strangely the first thing that people will pick on when they walk out of a movie or they turn off a television episode. They say, “Why did that even have to happen? Couldn’t that person just have talked to the other person and then the show wouldn’t have happened?”

They notice it every time.

**John:** There’s a TV trope called Refrigerator Logic, which is as you step away from a movie and you’re getting something out of your refrigerator you’re like, wait, why did that happen? Like there’s things that sometimes will glide past you when you’re actually seeing the story up on the screen. And then later on you’re like, wait, that did not actually make sense. And so let’s talk about how those things can actually make sense.

And what you’re describing really is the different between — we talked about that metaphor about being on the train. And so as the writer, you’re responsible for like what you’re seeing out the windows, but you’re also responsible for being way up high and seeing where the train track is going. So as you’re laying out where that train track is going, you have choices about what branches and what decisions the story will make. And I was thinking back to a post I did ten years ago on the blog called the Perils of Coincidence. And that came after I watched Spider Man 3.

And Spider Man 3 is not a great movie. And there were some significant issues of coincidence where a bunch of things just had to happen in exactly a certain way. People had to be there at the same moment when this other thing was happening in ways that felt really, really unlikely. And so in that post I sort of broke through these are the coincidences. Here are some maybe ways they could have gotten out of those coincidences. Because when you see coincidences, you can always imagine at the outline phase. Like if they were turning in the treatment for that story there were a bunch of words like “at the same time, accidentally, luckily, unfortunately, meanwhile.” Those are all really signals that something is going on where it’s convenient for these things to happen but they’re not actually causing the other things to happen.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** You always get I think one coincidence in a story that can be kind of fundamental. And so a fundamental coincidence to me is like, well, in Spider Man it’s Peter Parker gets bit by a radioactive spider. Anyone else could have been bit by that radioactive spider, but then it wouldn’t be Spider Man. So the audience will always give you that one sort of fundamental coincidence.

In Die Hard, John McClane happens to be in the tower when the bad guys take over.

**Craig:** Where his wife is. Yeah.

**John:** Where his wife is. Yes. But they’ve already established that he’s there because his wife is there, so that all makes sense. If his wife happened to be in the same building, that would be too many coincidences. But it made sense because they were all kind of bundled together in one thing. You wouldn’t have the movie if you didn’t have that kind of fundamental coincidence.

And usually that movie will spend its fundamental coincidence very early in the first act. Like page 10, page 20, page 30 at the latest. It’s interesting watching the new Spider Man, which I won’t spoil, but they use their fundamental coincidence incredibly late in the story. And it was surprising but I think actually really effective. So when you see the movie you’ll say like, oh, wow, OK. And because the rest of the movie works so well they’re able to spend that coincidence quite late in the story and that was exciting.

**Craig:** The notion of coincidence and making things convenient is correct and it is connecting to the convenience of the writer. I think this is why people find it dissatisfying. It’s cheating. I mean, we want to watch these things unfold in a way that is surprising and fascinating to us, but after we are surprised we go, oh, OK, that was — that feels good. I like that this happened. I understand why it happened. It makes sense. I just didn’t see it coming. That’s the fun part.

With straight up coincidence, what the audience feels is you wanted to do a thing, or you needed to do a thing, so you just jammed it in. We don’t mind that first big coincidence because we understand that it is necessary for us to enjoy a thing. I mean, really the first coincidence of any movie is that we have shown up to see it. That’s — you know, so we’re OK with like, OK, we showed up to see your movie. You go ahead and do a thing.

But then the joy of the story is that there aren’t these things that are happening that just cheat. Because what’s the point then? We in our lives do not recognize the drama around us and the things that concern us as deriving largely from coincidence, even though I think strangely it’s probably true that most of the crazy things that happen in our lives are the result of coincidence. But the things that we’re mostly interested in, the passionate affair, the decision to steal, falling in love — these things feel volitional to us and they feel like they are arising naturally from the circumstances around us.

So those are the dramas that we like. We’re not so interested in stories where someone is walking down the street and a piano falls on them. It’s shocking, but there’s not drama to that. It’s just like, oh, how odd.

**John:** Yeah. It is. It’s surprising. And, oh, he happened to be there at that moment when the piano fell on him. And in real life sometimes the piano does just fall on a random person. But usually when we see an unexpected event or really any event, we expect there to be a cause. We expect there to be a relationship between these two events happening that is either causal, like one caused the other. It is correlated, like some outside force caused both events to happen. Or if neither of those things make sense, then it truly is coincidence. I think in the real world we tend to ascribe causal relationships to things that often are coincidence and that’s a real problem.

But in movie logic terms, these are our universes. And so we shouldn’t have to rely on coincidence for most of the work of our stories. So, if we’re not going for coincidence, we’re looking for causality. We’re looking for A causes B. Ideally, something we’ve seen already in the story has caused this effect. And now we’re in this situation and whatever the characters are doing in the situation, ideally your lead characters, not just the villains, whatever they’re doing is causing the next thing.

We talk about actions and consequences. Causality is about consequences. It’s about what this chain of events is leading to next. And how our characters are responding to that and changing their own circumstances.

**Craig:** Yeah. It does seem to me that part of the danger of what we do, the negative impact of what we do, is that we make such a big deal about very dramatic, very extreme events being caused, being purposeful. There are no coincidences, right? In life, almost all these things I think are coincidental. And then we try and put causation — every conspiracy theory that you see out there in some way or another is attempting to make sense of what may be coincidental. Sometimes there are conspiracies. We seem to be currently in the middle of one. But largely, no.

But in movies and TV, well, hey, what can we do? This is what we crave is this sense of causation. And when you think about movies — The Godfather is an incredibly complicated movie in that it’s got dozens of characters, and a lot of moving pieces in the machinery of the plot. A lot of hardware there. But everything is caused. And it all starts with a very simple thing. Someone shows up and says, “I have a business proposition.” It’s not even a coincidence. “You’re a business man. I have a business proposition.” And the Godfather says, no, I’m not interested.

And from that begins a series of caused events. And it is so satisfying to watch. Someone makes a choice. If you don’t give me what I want, I will do this. I did it. I just saw what you did. I’m now going to do this to stop you. And so on and so on. And it builds, and builds, and builds. Everything is caused. And I think it’s important when people are laying out their plots, they at least start from a place of everything — everything that happens here will be caused. Everything.

There are ways to fudge it here and there. But I think that’s probably the best ambition you can have for the machinery of your plot.

**John:** And one of the dangers here is you can fall into a trap of thinking like, oh, this is mechanical. This is a Rube Goldberg device where like once you set this ball rolling down the ramp everything will happen. In some ways that is accurate. But you want it to feel like all the characters are making individual choices that are leading to the next thing. So you don’t want just one series of events kicks off and the characters are just, again, we go back to this metaphor of being on rails. They’re just being dragged through the movie.

It needs to feel like they have volition, that they have the chance to make their own choices. But the choices they make will cause the next set of circumstances. And that can be really tricky to do.

So let’s talk about how you do that. So if I’m standing next to this writer who is working on the mystery of her story, what is some advice that we can give her to tackling the mystery of her story? Well, I would say that if you have the luxury of having a TV writing staff, that’s largely what they’re there for. So, when you see a TV room together, you know, sometimes yes they’re pitching jokes, they’re pitching storylines, they’re pitching ways to get through a scene. But a lot of what they’re doing is figuring out how are we going to get from this, to this, to this, to this. Like what are the natural causes and effects of these things.

**Craig:** Now, if you’re on your own, as I typically am — in fact, as I have always been — I think a general best principle is to start thinking about how you want to end. Because if you don’t know how you end, the danger that you will begin creating this bizarro plot to get from point A to where you eventually end up is high. If you know where you’re going to end, you can machine your plot. And remember, the point of machining the plot is not to be obvious, but rather the opposite. To be surprising. The surprises are not random. They are not derived from coincidence. They are carefully constructed. They are paying off in a satisfying way what you’ve set up.

You can’t really do that well if you don’t know where you end. So I think if you have your ending, you can create that causal chain with interesting reversals and surprises and twists and back and forths so that everything feels sort of meaningful. It is also important if you find yourself laying out your plot and suddenly there are a lot of, well, bends in the pipe. You know, a lot of strange things where you’re going, well, I got to do this so I can do that. Stop. Always stop. You may think you can get away with it. It’s just going to get worse and worse. It’s going to become byzantine.

Sometimes what happens is we fall in love with the notion that something is going to happen. And the problem is what’s come right before that something that we want to happen isn’t leading directly to the something we want to happen. So what do we do? We jam it in. We create a coincidence. Or even worse, we put in a bunch of scenes in between those things so that it will kind of get there naturally, but now there’s bloat.

Sometimes you kind of have to cut the throat of the thing that you really, really, really wanted to do because it’s not laying in properly. It may be able to happen later, but it may be the wrong thing. Your story will want things to happen naturally and then you are going to want things. And you kind of have to get your ego out of it a little bit and let your stories’ wants take precedence over yours.

Because I’ll tell you this. This the last chance you have to be clean. Outside the gate are the barbarians. That’s a little uncharitable to the people that are trying to help us make our movies. But I will tell you, for instance, Identity Thief, after I wrote my second draft, or even my first, there was a note — and it wasn’t really a note. It was sort of an order. “We want more villains.” And I don’t know why. To this day, I’m not really sure why.

And, you know, I did my very best to say that’s not — I don’t think we should. And the response back was, “Do it.” And so I did it. And it created so many coincidenty poor plotty mechanics. That stuff just — and you know, look, happily I don’t think anybody goes to a movie like that for the exciting villain plots, and yet it hurts every movie. Every movie. When there’s obvious bends and kinks because something that doesn’t belong has been put there. And nobody quite has a sense of what does and doesn’t belong to a movie that has not yet been shot than the writer does. I wish people would listen a little more carefully when the writer says that doesn’t belong.

It’s one of our Spidey senses.

**John:** Absolutely. So let’s talk about what the actual process might be for you’re the writer working by him or herself and you’re trying to figure out these plot mechanics, the story logic, before you start doing your draft ideally. So, different writers have different approaches. Some make a simple outline. Some use index cards. Some will write out a treatment.

What I would say though is no matter what your process is, if you’re describing it to somebody — basically if someone is looking at the cards with you, or if you are sharing your outline with somebody, watch out for when you’re saying these phrases that signal, OK, there’s something convenient happening here. That it’s not necessarily natural to what should be happening in the story. So when you find yourself saying “at the same time, meanwhile,” which means that you’re cutting away to something else, or “just then,” those situations — they’re unlikely and you can’t have so many unlikely things in your script.

You’re going to be running into problems if you’re saying those kind of phrases a lot.

One of the other things to really be mindful of, and I think this is partly what happened with what you described in Identity Thief is sometimes there’s mechanics happening in the story that won’t be immediately obvious to the reader and therefore the audience. Like there’s behind the scenes stuff that’s happening. And one of the real challenges for writers is all that hidden machinery has to make sense, even though it won’t surface till later on.

So, what the villain was doing those three weeks, or like why that person showed up at that point. Maybe you have a reason for why they got there. Maybe you’ll even be able to say the reason why they got there. But the minute they sort of showed up there or something happened that was not visible to the audience, that’s going to be a surprise. And figuring out how you’re going to balance what the audience knows versus what the audience is going to find out later on can be really tricky.

And so whenever I have stories that aren’t just one main trajectory that can be a lot of my planning work is figuring out how do I make it clear to the audience. Like these people were doing these things in the background. You just didn’t see them. But here we are now and the characters are doing these things now.

**Craig:** Yeah. Just continuing the Identity Thief case, there was one villain — I know, that’s crazy, right? I wrote one villain. What? Anyway, and very early on, in fact, the first time we meet Melissa McCarthy’s character, she’s on the phone with that villain and he’s upset. And she’s lying to him. And then later on when she and Jason Bateman’s character finally confronted each other and he’s kind of got her where he thinks he wants her, the bad guy shows up. It’s natural. She lied. We know she lied. He never got what she said she would send him. And he’s here. That makes sense. Meh. You know.

**John:** Well, in doing that, that initial conversation, you set the expectation that we would meet him and that he would show up. And you’re paying off that expectation. So that does not feel surprising to an audience. And it feels like, OK, this is a thing I expected to have happen. I’m happy that it’s now happening. I’m a smart person because I expected it to happen and therefore it is happening.

**Craig:** It was caused.

**John:** Yes, it was completely caused. It was not just a random fluke.

And even movies that I think are really good, like this most recent Wonder Woman movie, there will be some coincidences in there. And that’s OK. And if the movie is working really well you don’t notice it so much. A coincidence in the new Wonder Woman movie, which is not really spoiler at all, there’s a moment in the story where Diana first uses her bracers and sends off the shock wave. And like, wow, she has sort of supernatural powers.

She heads off and then like literally two minutes later while she’s standing on the cliff, Steve Trevor’s plane comes crashing down. Why did that happen at the same moment? Well, because it was convenient. There was nothing about her doing the bracers that caused his plane to fall. It just happened to happen at the same moment.

We go with it because it’s sort of the mythology and it feels OK and appropriate, but it is a big coincidence that it’s happened at the same moments. They literally coincided in ways that weren’t natural.

**Craig:** Exactly. And, look, when you’re writing, that may be where you end up. But it’s always worth in a moment like that to say am I avoiding a problem or am I avoiding a gift? Can this thing that just happened cause that thing? Wouldn’t that be satisfying? Now, it may not work. You may not be able to make sense of it. Or if you try, it may cause other problems and a ripple effect. And then you abandon it. But try. You know, I think sometimes what happens is these things happen, they emerge, and we get scared and try and run away from them when we should be running toward them.

**John:** Yep. Absolutely. Every problem is an opportunity. So take advantage of those opportunities as they come up. All right, let’s go step away from our whiteboards and go into our actual scenes. And you had a suggestion for the topic of gimmickry and the creative little tricks you can sometimes apply to keep scenes interesting. Take it away.

**Craig:** Well, it’s a little dangerous to be talking about this, because I always worry that people are going to go wee and start throwing ketchup all over their food. But these things can be great. I was thinking about it because I’ve been watching Fargo, the television series, and I should mention that one of the things that Fargo does that’s interesting is they make a little bit of a religion of coincidence. You can get away with a lot of coincidence if your show basically says around here coincidence happens all the time. Sometimes it happens to make things worse. Sometimes it happens to make things better. But that’s kind of the world we live in. We live in coincidence world.

You know, Tarantino lives in coincidence world.

**John:** Absolutely. He just happens to be crossing the street and getting hit by the car.

**Craig:** Exactly. And we’re like, yup, that’s what happens in Pulp Fiction world. That makes sense. Totally.

So, gimmickry. Sometimes you find yourself writing a scene and the general conventional way of laying things out feels a little meh. Feels a little boring. I don’t mean to equate conventional to boring, because sometimes conventional is the absolute best way to tell a scene and it is fascinating. But there are times when you’re going to want to, I don’t know, throw a little glitter on.

So, I just thought of a few of these things that we can do and at least by codifying them we know that we have these tools in our belt. And the first one is kind of radical — I mean, I guess they’re all radical in a way. Change the arrow of time. And we generally think of time as moving forward and it is linear, but of course we have seen lots of movies and lots of TV shows where things move out of order. Sometimes they move backwards. Sometimes we see something that should have happened before the thing we just saw happening after the thing we saw. But we get it.

Do you remember how in Out of Sight he did that interesting — Soderbergh and Scott Frank did that interesting trick of editing and scene design where you had Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney falling in love but we found out about it out of its time in the movie. It was just fascinating the way it worked.

There’s nothing wrong with that. You just got to be careful when you do it. It needs to be purposeful. It needs to evoke something. You can jump time in little steps. You can also jump time in big steps. You can have, you know, a scene where two people are talking at a place and then one of them turns around and it’s 20 years earlier and now they’re children talking in that place. You can do these things. You just obviously have to have a reason why.

**John:** Absolutely. And as the screenwriter, you need to make it clear on the page what you’re doing. Because some of these effects will be really obvious in the film, but will be really hard to see on the page unless you’re upfront with the reader about like this is what’s happening. And you don’t have to explain why you’re doing it, but you have to explain like what it’s going to look like and feel like if you were watching the movie. That you’re acknowledging that you’re jumping this thing. Because when you’re just reading 12-point Courier it’s easy to sort of miss and get confused by these sort of sleights of hand.

**Craig:** Yeah. Similarly, if you change the arrow time, you can kind of change the nature of space by splitting the screen. When we think of split screens, I guess what immediately comes to mind are just bad sitcom split screen kind of jokes where one person is talking on a phone and the other one is also on the phone. And it’s a split screen. Wah wah.

But split screens I actually think can be incredibly valuable when you’re trying to create tension. So, I’ll go back to Tarantino, again. Because, by the way, Tarantino the most — he goes bananas with these gimmicks and he uses them so well. There’s a moment in Kill Bill where we see that Uma Thurman is in a coma and also we see Darryl Hannah’s character coming down the hallway with a syringe to kill her. And he splits the screen. And there’s something beautiful about watching a demon essentially stalking down a hallway. And then at the same time watching this completely helpless human being. And the tension just rises because what he’s telling us is there’s no chance she’s going to open that door and our hero won’t be in the bed. She’s going to be in the bed. You see her, right there.

You can also split the screen where you see the same thing happening from two different angles at the same time, which is a fascinating thing, because in one angle somebody is walking out of a car and they’re walking into a store and they’re quite happy. In the other angle, just because of the nature of the camera, we see that someone is watching them. And they don’t know.

It is the sort of thing that I think screenwriters should be thinking more about because when we don’t there is a danger that the director will. And I don’t mean to say that like directors are bad at it. They’re not. But if the gimmick is only directorial, it will feel more gimmicky. When it is connected to an emotion or a feeling or a purpose, which is our domain when we are writing these things, I think it can be terrific.

**John:** Yeah. You’re describing using these tricks to really enhance or underline the emotion or the story point you’re trying to get there. So it is better for the gimmick. The gimmick is just not there on top of what you’re otherwise seeing. It’s not a conventional scene with a gimmick applied to it. It is a scene that is better and unique because of the gimmick. And once you see it with a gimmick, it would be hard to imagine that scene without that moment.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think when some people watch these movies, I think critics fall into this trap a lot. I don’t mean reviewers. I mean analyzers of film. They will tend to see these things as style. They will tend to see them as visual style. But when we connect to them, it’s not because they’re visually stylistic. It’s not the aesthetics. It’s what it tells us about the people involved and how it makes us feel. It is actually again an extension of character. And an extension of the empathetic connection that we have with the people on screen.

There’s another thing that happens quite a bit and I think when we watch it we don’t realize how radical it is. And that’s just bending or even breaking reality itself. Sometimes somebody should just talk to a dead person. You can have a scene where somebody is just sitting in their bed and they say out loud to the ceiling, “Oh, Edith, I wish you were here. What should I do? I don’t know what to do. I’m lost without you.” Boring.

Or maybe Edith is just there. The beginning of The Iron Lady did this beautifully. Meryl Streep plays an aging Margaret Thatcher. And when we meet her she’s talking to her husband, played by Jim Broadbent, and the two of them are having the most mundane typical breakfast conversation. And she’s telling him, “You’re putting too much butter on your toast.” I mean, you have no idea that he’s actually dead. He’s not there. He’s not there. And then you realize, oh, he’s not there. Wonderful.

You can also bend reality by just freezing the entire world except for one person. And, of course, there’s the typical breaking the fourth wall, which is always a trickier proposition. But I guess my point is you have the ability to do things that are beyond the pale of what we experience in our everyday lives in terms of reality. And you just have to make sure that there’s an in and an out. And that once we get out of it, we know we’re out of it.

That’s the key. You can surprise people. You don’t have to tell them you’re going into it. You just have to let them know that it happened and now you’re out.

**John:** Absolutely. And it’s the kind of thing which you probably try to do relatively early in your film so you get a sense of like this is the kind of thing that happen in your movie. Because if you do it quite late, then it feels like, wait, you’ve broken the rules you’ve set. There’s a social contract you’ve signed with the audience and now you’ve broken that contract.

And always be mindful of, you know, you are defining your characters and their actions on the page, but you’re also defining the character of the movie. And so the kinds of choices you’re making in terms of the gimmickry, the stylistic choices you’re making, that’s the character of the movie. That’s what your movie feels like.

And so as long as it’s consistent with what the movie feels like, you know, the way that Tarantino movies feel consistent with a Tarantino world, it’s going to be — it’s going to feel right. It’s going to feel like something that can happen in your world.

But if you’re completely straight drama and then suddenly you try to pull this thing at page 80, I think the audience is going to rebel and quite understandably for your not following the basic rules you seem to have set for yourself.

**Craig:** I agree. I mean, every time you do this, you are breaking the tone one way or another. In 500 Days of Summer, everyone slips into a musical number. That is a gimmick. And believe me, I don’t use gimmick as a pejorative. I use it as what it is. It’s an exciting, dazzling way of attracting people’s attention. We know, OK, this is the kind of movie where that can happen.

So later when they break reality, again, and show us two simultaneous evenings, expectations versus reality, we understand that can happen here. And it’s all right. Similarly when we watch Kill Bill, the fact that suddenly the movie switches into animation, acceptable. There are also moments sometimes where the break in the tone is OK because the movie is silly. There’s not a lot of gimmickry, filmic gimmicky in a movie like say Woody Allen’s Love and Death, which is one of my favorite movies. I mean, it’s broad. It’s very broad. It’s very silly. It’s wonderful. He doesn’t really mess around with reality too much. But then it does.

Then there’s a sequence that turns into a silent movie, into a silent film, which is hysterical and amazing. But you have to be aware of what John is saying here, those of you at home. Your story has to be able to survive this. And just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

Gimmickry is amazing because it frees you. It gives you like these — like we used to have the box of crayons. I had the box of 16 crayons and someone showed up and they’re like, “I have the box of 64 crayons. I have seven more blues than you do.” OK. Well, gimmicks, those are the extra blues and the extra reds. It’s the big box of crayons. They tend to make us feel more creative. When you read them in scripts, they tend to make the read feel maybe more sophisticated or ambitious. But even then, that is kind of a gimmick. Because it only is ambitious and creative and advanced when it works.

So, do it if it makes something better. Don’t if it doesn’t. Just know that you can.

**John:** Absolutely. The bigger box of crayons will not make you a better artist. They will just let you do some things that you couldn’t otherwise do easily. And that’s important. That can be useful. And I think by limiting ourselves to the simplest things, sometimes you’re able to tell simple, and true, and very strong stories. There’s a reason why you may want to not use the gimmicks, not use the full set of tools that you could use.

But, there’s certainly circumstances where you want to try to do those. And I think those are great. And quite a few of my films have used some of those fancy crayons. Like my first movie Go. It restarts time twice. There’s scenes that you see from multiple perspectives. You ultimately recognize that there’s quite a bit more going on than you first thought. And that’s great.

My movie, The Nines, is sort of nothing but a bunch of crayons melting all over the screen. And it’s very deliberately playing with your expectations of what is the difference between these actors and these characters. And is there any real underlying reality behind all this. It breaks its tone. There are musical numbers. There’s reality stuff happening in there. Melissa McCarthy is playing herself. It’s a very different set of expectations than you would normally have going into a movie.

But that’s not the only way to tell a story. And I don’t try to apply as many effects as I can to every movie. Like you have to be very judicious and see what is right for the story you’re trying to tell.

**Craig:** And I think you’ll know. That’s the thing. There’s a certain sense of satisfaction. There’s a feeling, oh yes, you know, this feels so much better than just the usual way. You know, I remember Todd Phillips and I were like struggling with how to do a flashback. Like, oh, here’s a flashback scene. I was like, yeah, well, I don’t know. And then the notion that in Alan’s mind they’re all children and to do it with children, that’s a gimmick. But it made so much sense and suddenly it was a joy to write. It was exciting. You know?

And I feel like, OK, if we are chaining our hands to the keyboard and going, OK, here we go, blah, blah, blah, then it’s probably going to be a similar experience for the audience. When you get excited and it just flows, then you know you’ve got the right gimmick. But again, word of caution, most of the time it will be flowing and feeling great with no gimmicks at all.

**John:** 100% agree. All right, Craig, let’s try to answer one or two of these questions in our mailbox.

**Craig:** Let’s try, you know. Let’s try.

**John:** We have audio, so let’s first listen to Kate from Phoenix, Arizona, who wrote in with a question.

Kate: My question is about interviewing experts to create more realistic stories. The script that I’m writing deals with a crime and the legal consequences. Although I have a respectable working knowledge of these procedures for a lay person, I can tell it’s not enough. I need to find a cop and a lawyer to interview to get the details right. I found some people online who are more than willing to consult for a sizeable fee. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, but my wallet does. Do you have advice for finding and interviewing experts? Once I find them, is it customary to have them read the script and point things out? Or ask about procedures piecemeal?

Also, for a Murphy’s Law type of situation, if I change story elements based on what they say, can they claim some kind of story credit? That’s sort of the point of asking in the first place, to change the story and make it better. And I’m not opposed to giving credit if it were fair, but I would prefer not to share the story credits if I can help it.

Are there measures I should take to protect the intellectual property of my own work?

**John:** Well, that’s a great question. I don’t have perfect answers for Kate, so I’m going to preface this by saying I bet some of our listeners have good resources they might point Kate towards in terms of finding the cop and a lawyer who she could talk to.

But I can offer some general guidance which is, no, you should not be paying anybody. And, no, they should not be trying to take story credit. What you’re doing is just asking people about their jobs. And you’re asking them how they do their work and asking them some theoretical questions. That’s not story credit. You’re nowhere near that. So, anybody you’re talking to who would want to try to get that from you is not the right person for you to talk to. Craig?

**Craig:** Yeah, no question. There’s not going to be any payment here. I’m doing a project right now that has a lot of research involved. It’s more research than I’ve ever done for anything in my life. And I’ve talked to all sorts of people. But I specifically had to talk to a cop when I was working on Identity Thief, because I wanted to find out how does this all work, and how do you go through your job and deal with this stuff. If you call, I think if you just call, Kate, you say you’re from Phoenix. Call Phoenix PD up and just say, “Listen, I’m a writer. I’d love to sit down and interview an officer or a detective. Would you have somebody willing to talk with me for a half an hour? I just have questions for a story I’m writing.”

I would be shocked if no one said yes. Everybody wants to talk about their job. Everybody wants somebody to get it right. I think people are interested in being a part of something like that. I don’t think there’s any issue with credit because they’re not writing anything. They’re talking to you and you’re taking notes.

You certainly can give them an assurance that you’re not going to use their name. That you’re not going to use anything that’s identifiable to them. And if you are recording the conversation, that the recording will not be played back for anybody other than yourself. That it’s only for research purposes. But I think by and large if you just ask, same thing with law. If there’s an area of law. I mean, you must know somebody that knows somebody that has a lawyer. Have that person ask their lawyer. Who would be a good lawyer who might want to talk to you about this? Somebody sooner or later is just going to say, “I’ll do it,” because people generally want to help.

**John:** They do. So I think Kate’s social network is probably bigger than she realizes. So if she just goes on Facebook, throws it out there like, hey, I’m looking for any cop or any lawyer, does anybody know somebody? Somebody will know somebody who knows somebody who is going to be willing to talk with you about this.

Before I left for Paris, I was in an Uber. I was actually headed to Kelly Marcel’s house. And our Uber driver was from a country who was exactly the right person I needed to talk to about this project I was writing. And so I just started up a conversation with him and said like, hey, this is really crazy but would it be OK if I called you and asked you more questions about the country you’re from and when you came to the US. And he said, of course, that would be fine.

And so you will bump into people in your real life who are going to be helpful and will get you through that kind of thing. I was also years ago I was in upstate Maine doing research for this other project that never got made. And I was staying at this little hotel and whenever I would meet somebody new I was like, I would ask them about their job and I’d say like, hey, do you know anybody else who has lived here since 1970? Did you know any people who are old timers here? Because I’m trying to find out information. And so over the course of three or four days I was able to talk to ten different people about sort of what Maine was like in the 1970s. And it was great. It was fantastic. And it didn’t matter that I had credits or didn’t have credits. They were just like, well, somebody wants to know, I’m happy to talk to you about it.

So, you will find somebody who has the information you need. And if your listeners have other good suggestions for first places that Kate should look, we welcome them.

**Craig:** I talked to a detective at the Beverly Hills Police Department when I was doing research for Identity Thief. And he was describing how they work and how you deal with law enforcement when you catch them. And how you have to deal with it as a victim. And he was great. And when it was over, and I was leaving, he said, “Oh, by the way, what happens to the thief at the end?” And I said, well, I haven’t written it yet. I’m just in the research phase here. But I think she’s going to go to jail. And he said, “She should die.” [laughs]

And I said, what? And he goes, “She should die. These people are terrible.” And I thought, you know, I guess if you deal with the consequences of identity theft every day, day in and day out, and deal with the victims of it day in and day out, that’s probably how you would feel. That makes sense. Yeah.

**John:** So, useful advice for real world, but probably not useful advice for someone writing a comedy about an identity thief.

**Craig:** By the way, also, something to keep in mind, Kate. Reality is fantastic until it is not helpful. And then it is not fantastic. Especially if you’re doing something that is essentially a fictional dramatization of things that needs to be informed by reality. You know, use what helps.

**John:** Absolutely. Let’s do one more question. This is Jason from Los Angeles.

Jason: I’ve been living in LA for eight years and I just haven’t been able to break into the business the way I want to. I write consistently. I rewrite. I get notes from trusted friends. I rewrite some more. I’ve made short films. I’ve gotten into a few festivals. I recently posted a script to the Black List. And while all of these things have absolutely helped me to develop and hone my craft, they haven’t opened any industry doors for me.

I’m 33 years old. I’m married. So, jumping into something like an unpaid internship at a production company or spending five years in a mailroom doesn’t seem feasible for me. Which is why I’m considering doing something both of you have often opposed, and even more often with great umbrage. I’m considering going to a writing consultant. So, what I’m not considering doing is going to some online “guru” who has 12 tips for this and eight surefire techniques for that. No. What I’m talking about is basically a teacher. Someone who is all over YouTube. I’ve seen their ideas. I’ve seen them talk about their ideas. And they’re sound. They sound legit. It’s someone who has video testimonials on their website from current writers who are currently working in the business who are staffed on TV shows.

And I’m considering this for the same reason someone might consider hiring a tutor. This is a person outside my circle of friends who owes me nothing, knows their stuff, and best of all can give me notes face-to-face that can help me improve my script. I’ve looked into the cost and one year of meetings would run me about $3,500. Now, that’s not nothing, but it’s also not my life savings.

At this point in my life, that doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount of money to try something new that can help me get where I want to go. Because what I’m doing right now hasn’t.

So, John, Craig, please tell me: am I crazy?

**John:** Craig, is Jason crazy?

**Craig:** No. He’s not crazy at all. He’s not crazy in the slightest. That’s why the industry of people that take money from folks like him is thriving and well, because they’re not preying on the insane. They’re preying on the sane and they’re preying on people who are scared and to some extent desperate. And I understand it. I mean, Jason has been at this for a while now it sounds like.

And he has a life. He’s created a life for himself. I assume he has a day job. Somehow he’s paying the bills. I completely agree that when you’re 33 years old and you have this life that you set up for yourself, starting in a mailroom or an unpaid internship doesn’t make any sense, and also it’s not necessary to be a writer or a director. It’s necessary if you want to be an agent or studio executive, I suppose.

So, no, Jason, you’re not crazy at all. But I’m glad that you did this — I’m glad you recorded this question because you get to listen to yourself back now. And I want to ask you — who do you sound like? Because to me, I’m concerned that you sound like the guy that’s about to lose money. And the reason why is you’re grasping at straws and I think you know you’re grasping at straws here. It’s not impossible that spending money on some outside help like this might help you improve your script. I think it’s highly unlikely it will help improve your script to the point where suddenly all those doors that have been firmly shut will fling open.

I don’t think it kind of works like that. I am concerned that after all this time it may just be that you don’t write or direct the sorts of things that the rooms you want to be in welcome. You may be a different kind of writer or director. It’s also possible that you’re not supposed to be doing this at all. I have no fear saying that. I know it is upsetting to hear and it’s particularly upsetting if next week you sign on and sell your movie and make a billion dollars and win an Oscar. Then I look like a dumb-dumb.

And I know that that’s the dream. So, I guess my advice to you would be this: think twice. $3,500 isn’t your life savings. It’s also $3,500. Think about who is asking you for that money and why they want it. Think about the nature of Hollywood. Think about predators and prey. And ask yourself if this is what’s right and best for you.

Generally speaking, as you know, I think it’s not. But, I also am aware that when I say these things, they are of no great assistance to somebody that’s trying to get one of those doors open.

John, what do you think?

**John:** Yeah. What I like about Jason, he already is thinking twice. In deciding to write into us and record his question, he is thinking twice. And he’s recognizing all of the sort of pitfalls ahead of him. So, he’s sort of done a lot of our work for us. And he’s further along in the process then somebody who says like, oh, maybe I’m going to start writing a script and I’ll hire this consultant.

So, I’m trying to step back and think about if I had $3,500 and I wanted to spend that $3,500 to improve my writing, what might I do? Well, I might take a class. I might take a UCLA Extension class. I might do something else that would sort of get me in a place where I’m around other people who are writing, who can help me focus in on what I’m doing. And so by that structure, I can’t say it’s the worst use of your money.

But I don’t know anything about this person he’s really going to. He says this person has YouTube videos, has a track record. I guess. Before I would give this person any of my money, I would want to know who has been using this person and what would they actually say. And the good thing about the Internet these days is you will find somebody who has had an experience with this person, positive or negative. Find out what that experience actually was. Because I don’t want you spending your money on just some charlatan who promises things.

I know that early in my career I was lucky to have some people who would read every draft of my stuff and would give me notes and I genuinely did get better doing that. Some of them were teachers. Others were producers who were trying to get my work on the screen. And I did get better. And so while I wasn’t paying them directly, or I was paying them indirectly through the university, it did help.

So, this could help you. I’m just concerned that it’s not the right person. I’m worried that you’re going to be writing in a year from now saying like, “Oh you know what guys? I spent that $3,500 and it was not the right choice. And I’m not any closer to what I want to be doing.”

**Craig:** Well, there is another negative outcome here. I mean, Jason mentioned that the person has testimonials on their advertising, and of course they do. The question isn’t whether or not people enjoyed working with this particular consultant. The question is whether or not this consultant got them their ultimate goal, which was to sell their screenplay or be employed to write another screenplay. And that’s not just sell it to some marginal player. There are a lot of those. But sell it to the kind of company you want to be in business with. Right Jason?

What these people do necessarily requires them to be good to you. When I say good to you, I mean, warm and fuzzy and encouraging because they want you to come back and keep paying them. They are actually less reliable, I think, then your friends in that regard. They will tell you, “Listen, this script has tremendous promise. You have tremendous promise. You can make this great. And you can get everything you want. Work with me. I will get you there.”

They will say that probably no matter what because that’s what’s going to make them the most money. And there are people who after a year or two will say, “I’m going to — I will gladly give you a testimonial because you’ve made my script better and you make me feel good in a world and business that otherwise makes me feel terrible.”

But $3,500 is a lot of money for that. And that ultimately really isn’t going to get you what you want. So, be careful of that praise. And be careful of that encouragement. They probably won’t say to you, “Hmm, I read it. This is no good. And I can’t help you with it. I don’t want your money.” You know?

The whole business is soaking in a certain kind of conflict of interest.

**John:** Yeah. It occurs to me listening to Jason’s question is that I feel like over the course of our 309 episodes we haven’t done a great job of introducing listeners to people who were sort of similarly positioned to Jason who made it. And there are some. And I’m thinking of a friend now who I can’t believe I’ve not had on the podcast who in his middle 30s, late 30, sort of finally got it started and finally got staffed on a TV show and is now running his own show.

It does happen. And because it’s rare doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. And I want to have him on the show to talk about sort of what he did and sort of the choices he made. And what he would do differently. Because he might have better advice for Jason than you or I would because we started at such a different time.

So, in hearing Jason’s question I’m recognizing that there’s probably a group of our steady listeners who we’ve never really directly addressed with how it can work. We’ve always sort of given them negative advice in a way. Like, you know, don’t do these things rather than like these are the things that actually work for people. So, that’s going to be a goal to get my friend on the show in the next couple of weeks.

**Craig:** I think that’s really smart. Because, you know, we do want to help. Obviously we want to help, because we’re trying to help people who are writing. And we’re trying to help them write better. And happily we don’t take — well, John takes their money hand over fist. I don’t get anything. But we don’t have much in the way of saying, “And we also want to help you get that job.”

We keep hitting this thing of write a great script, you’ll get the job. But, there are some practicals. It would be great to hear from somebody who has gone through it, especially somebody who is older than the typical right out of college “here I am, I want to be a writer.”

I will say that Jason sounds incredibly nice. He just sounds like a good guy and that makes me nervous. I’m nervous because sometimes it’s the good ones that end up getting fleeced the hardest.

So, you know what, Jason, talk to your wife. She knows you better than anybody. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. You say to her — I got to think of a good name for Jason’s wife. I’m going to go with Marissa. “Marissa,” so close to my wife’s name. Anyway. “Marissa, tell me something because I don’t trust myself on this issue. Does this sound like a good idea? Should I do this? Should I not do this? Give it to me straight. I know that you love me either way.”

I hope that’s true about Marissa

**John:** Yeah, you never know. Never assume how other people’s marriages work.

**Craig:** You’re right. You’re right. Like he may call in next week and say, “Well, I’m divorced now. I asked her. And apparently that was the only excuse she needed to just pack her stuff up and, yeah. So…and now I have half of that $3,500.” [laughs]

**John:** Oh, community property. California state law.

**Craig:** Ruining lives one podcast listener at a time.

**John:** Let’s move on and go to our One Cool Things before we wreck anymore havoc in the world.

**Craig:** Great idea.

**John:** My One Cool Thing this week is the bus. Which bus? Well, really any bus. But my whole year in Paris, one of my revelations was that as a tourist I was always taking the Metro to get from place to place, because Paris has a Metro, so why are you not taking the trains.

What was so great about this last year is the busses are actually fantastic. And I was always sort of scared to take the busses because I didn’t quite know where they were going, or how to use them, or how it would all work. The huge advantage, the huge change, is that Google Maps now has all of the busses in the map directions. So if you are someplace, you want to get someplace, Google Maps will tell you get on this bus, it’ll take you to the place. And it was fantastic. And the busses in Paris were great. And so convenient. And while I was on my bus I could do my Duolingo and it was a great experience.

So, coming back to Los Angeles I vowed, you know what, I’m going to start taking the bus more often.

**Craig:** Hmm.

**John:** So this last week I took the bus to Beverly Hills. It was fantastic. And Google Maps worked just as well. And so the busses in Los Angeles are not bad at all. And people are always kind of afraid of the busses and they shouldn’t be. They were the same as the busses in Paris. It got me where I needed to go. It was easy and delightful. It was cheaper because I didn’t have to park my car in Beverly Hills. So, just try the bus. It sounds so simple and obvious because obviously I grew up taking the bus in Boulder. But a bus in the big city can be really great. And if people took the bus more often, I think they would be surprised.

**Craig:** It’s true that the thing that keeps me from the bus is just general fear of where the hell I’m going. Because these busses pull up and I just don’t know the bus system well enough. Like in New York, I’m here in New York right now, that’s why this microphone sounds weird, I take the subway all the time. I take the subway everywhere I can take it. And it’s really clear. I know exactly where it’s going. And they’ve got letters on them. And they never change. And that’s that with those.

And then the busses come and they have these letters and numbers. And I just get confused. I get confused.

**John:** You know who does know? Your phone knows. Your phones knows everything. And so Google Maps, you punch it in, it will tell you exactly when that bus is coming, when to get on it. It’s great and convenient. And also because you’re not underground you don’t lose service, so you can actually do things on your phone. It’s great.

So I would just recommend people try the bus. If you haven’t tried the bus in years, take a bus sometime this month and see what it’s like.

**Craig:** Following this podcast, bus murders, up by 30%.

**John:** Ha-ha. Always the best.

**Craig:** I mean, let’s face it: our listeners are easy marks. Well, I’ll continue with the transportation theme of One Cool Thing. Hyperloop One.

**John:** I saw that. They tested.

**Craig:** And it was successful. It worked. Now, they were testing — was essentially like a chassis, like a little sled. It wasn’t the full car where you can put people. And it wasn’t at full speed either. They talk about being able to go up to 700 miles per hour. In this case, the test I think was just 70 miles per hour. But it worked. They have a tube. It’s a vacuum. And they got maglev. And it shot down the track and it worked.

So, at least you’ve got this first theory into practice mode and I got to say the way that people are jumping on board with this thing, it feels like it’s going to happen. It legitimately does not feel like bunk.

You know, look, obviously I know that what do they call them, Super Trains? What do they call the — bullet trains? Bullet trains are real. I know they’re real. I’ve ridden on a bullet train. But when California said we’re going to spend billions of dollars to make a bullet train I thought no you’re not. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to spend billions of dollars, but we’re not going to have a bullet train. And we don’t.

We have spent billions of dollars. There’s no bullet train. This thing feels like it’s going to happen. And if they can put it together, they’re saying you can get on board in Los Angeles and be in San Francisco within I think 50 minutes.

**John:** It’s crazy.

**Craig:** It’s amazing. And that’s 50 minutes without going to an airport and getting in the line. It’s just hope on a tube and you’re there.

**John:** Yeah. So we’ll hope. Yeah. I mean, we’re in a weird time when we have all these amazing things that can be happening even while the world seems to be falling apart. So, it’s going to be a real race to see which future we end up in.

**Craig:** I do believe the world is essentially separated into two tribes at this point. Builders and tearers-down. And builders, the one advantage that builders have is that they’re ingenious. And the one advantage that tearers-down have is they are indiscriminate. They’ll just tear — if it’s standing down, they’ll tear it down. They don’t care.

**John:** Yeah. Just swing that crow bar and you can just knock things down.

**Craig:** Exactly. Yeah. They’ve certainly got inertia on their side, don’t they?

**John:** They do. Gravity works. They have all the stored energy in there. They can just make things fall.

**Craig:** Exactly. And what’s the — entropy. They have entropy. Inevitably, the tearers-down win.

**John:** Well, in the end everything becomes dust. But it’s just how cool things can be before they all become dust.

**Craig:** Before the universe ends in heat death. 100%. Yep.

**John:** As we wrap up, I will remind people that the Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide is available. It’s the first 300 episodes of the show, plus all the bonus episodes. People recommend which things you should check out. So, if you’re new to the show and you want to dig into the back catalog that is a great place to start.

You can listen to those episodes on the new USB drives. So you can go to store.johnaugust.com and get one of those USB drives. They are lovely and sturdy.

And that’s our show. Our show is produced by Carlton Mittagakus.

**Craig:** What?

**John:** It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week comes from Rajesh Naroth.

**Craig:** Of course.

**John:** If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. We are on Facebook. Search for Scriptnotes Podcast. You can also find us on Apple Podcasts. Look for Scriptnotes. And while you’re there, leave us a review.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts. We try to get them up about four days after the episode airs. And you can find all the back episodes at Scriptnotes.net.

Craig, thanks for a fun episode.

**Craig:** Thank you, John. And next week, same time zone.

**John:** Oh, so nice.

**Craig:** So nice. See you then.

**John:** Bye.

Links:

* [Get your tickets now](https://www.wgfoundation.org/screenwriting-events/scriptnotes-homecoming-show/) for the July 25th Scriptnotes Live Homecoming Show, with guests [Liz Meriwether](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Meriwether), [Megan Amram](https://twitter.com/meganamram) and more!
* [Julie Buxbaum’s What to Say Next](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553535684/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) on Amazon
* [Fridge logic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic) on TV Tropes
* John on [The perils of coincidence](http://johnaugust.com/2007/perils-of-coincidence)
* The [Fargo TV series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_(TV_series)) makes a religion of coincidence
* Gimmickry used in Kill Bill with [split screens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWI4G9PB31c) and [animation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQM0klOXck8), in (500) Days of Summer with [musical numbers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tJoIaXZ0rw) and [alternate timelines](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fL94BTrFhs), when [talking to the dead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7xeK76cwA0) in Iron Lady, when Love and Death [becomes a silent film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEETZTs795U&t=0m48s), and when [flashbacks become childhood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLk9y0RZSGo) in The Hangover 2
* [Go](https://www.amazon.com/Go-Katie-Holmes/dp/B008Y6YKEE/) and [The Nines](https://www.amazon.com/Nines-Ryan-Reynolds/dp/B00164LTUO/) on Amazon Video
* [The LA Metro System](https://www.metro.net)
* [Hyperloop One](https://hyperloop-one.com/) and its [successful first test](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15958224/hyperloop-one-first-full-system-test-devloop)
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Rajesh Naroth ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_309.mp3).